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Small and medium-sized enterprises, which represent two-thirds of employment in the European Union, generally operate in the knowledge-intensive service sector and technology field, and are increasingly involved in international partnerships. Small and medium-sized enterprises, which have an important place in the Turkish economy, constitute 99.3% of all enterprises. Their share in employment is 76.7%, and their share in the added value created is 37.7%. Creating innovation and being competitive in the transition from a raw material-based economy to a knowledge-based economy forms the basis of economic development.
As the development process progresses, the importance of capital increases and it is necessary to have well-functioning labor and capital markets. The last century has led to large businesses needing to downsize and restructure. In this process, country economies based on heavy industry and large enterprises were in a difficult situation. One of the most common features in these countries going through a transition process is the lack of entrepreneurs. In this period when states are increasingly withdrawing from economic activities, the need for entrepreneurs who will create innovation and difference has increased.
In the ever-growing world economy under changing conditions, the players have become smaller and the power of the smallest players, the entrepreneurs, has increased. There is a close relationship between the economic and social development levels of countries and their entrepreneurship performance. Entrepreneurship determines their place in the world economy by increasing the competitiveness of national economies by creating new goods and services through innovations. Entrepreneurship has a significant impact on the economic and social development level of countries because it is the process of creating an economic activity by combining risk taking, creativity and innovation processes within a new or existing business.
The concept of entrepreneurship is a concept that has been used for a long time in both business and economics literature. Although this concept has been defined in different ways until today, it is generally associated with the ability to organize the inputs of production in order to benefit from emerging opportunities or create new opportunities and risk-taking characteristics. Economic development has been a key issue for economic policy practitioners and economic researchers. Particularly in Europe, interest in economic development has increased rapidly due to high rates of unemployment.
After World War II, most OECD countries achieved high rates of economic growth. Following the first oil crisis in 1973, there was a period of low growth rates along with inflation. Until the mid-1980s, economic growth rates began to rise again in some countries. In the 1960s and 1970s, academic and political interest in most western countries increasingly turned to demand management and income distribution, while interest in the causes of economic growth decreased. In these periods, economic growth was explained by the accumulation of production factors and external technological change through neoclassical theory.
In the basic economic understanding, long-term factor accumulation and technological development were not dealt with. In the 1980s, stagflation and high unemployment rates led to increased interest in supply-side economics and the fundamental factors affecting economic growth. Especially in these periods, issues such as incentives, regulation of markets and social rigidities began to be focused on. Along with these developments, the 1980s and 1990s were periods when the roles of small and medium-sized companies in the economy were re-evaluated and a new interest in entrepreneurship emerged.
