فك الاشتباك الاصطلاحي بين ريادة الأعمال والمشاريع الصغيرة والمتوسطة: معالجة مفاهيمية تطبيقية

الملخص EN

The research problem is the lack of clarity of terminological differences between entrepreneurship and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), in both: the literature and practice.

the research problem is translated into three main questions: (1) is there a conceptual distinction between the two terms? (2) are there practical benefits in distinguishing between the two terms, or that the interest lies in the lack of distinction between the two?, (3) if there are practical benefits, how can such a distinction be made? the direct reasons for the completion of this study are not stemmed from our academic agenda, as usual, but from practical problems in the business environment, which represents an answer to a question posed from an Arab government official about the terminological differences between the two terms.

by answering this practical question, this study tries to exceed the conceptual type of investigation, to search for achieving advantages in practice and increasing the fruits of the governments' policies in promoting innovative young groups in the Arab world, in a manner that can raise the contribution of these groups in the economic growth and social well-being and tackling the problems of unemployment and poverty in cumulative ways and in accordance with the strategic perspective of development.

the study concluded that small and medium entrepreneurship is a special type of SMEs, and provided reasons on which it is pushing for the adoption of the terminological distinction between the two types of projects, revealing the real-world gains.

the study proposed definitions of the two terms in the light of its identification of four attributes of entrepreneurial projects, namely: innovation, proactiveness, risk and speed, bearing in mind that innovation is the most important feature.

the study suggested a four-level ranking of entrepreneurship, where classified to: high, medium, low and limited entrepreneurship.