In keeping with my focus in my last entry about the need for Canadian business people to adapt to the changing nature of the market and find new opportunities, I thought it would be appropriate to briefly discuss the importance of entrepreneurship in Canada. Small businesses (those with fewer than 50 employees) account for nearly half of all employment in British Columbia and provide approximately 34% of the provincial gross domestic product. In addition to this, entrepreneurship provides the engine of creative innovation that results in new ways of doing things like making money, communicating, dealing with social demands, organizing our society, structuring our economy, and countless other aspects of our national reality. It is common for small-scale entrepreneurs to move into lucrative new opportunities ahead of larger companies because they are more willing to accept risk in order to reap large benefits. Obviously this means that many small businesses fail and statistics indicate that “barely half” of all new businesses survive past their fifth year. The most important thing for fostering entrepreneurship is to construct the “rules of the game” such that creating a small business is a “rational and informed choice for individuals with entrepreneurial talent”.
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Entrepreneurship+vital+driver+innovation/3675542/story.html