[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/money.jpg” caption=”‘New small businesses are where well-educated Canadians stand to benefit the most in a globally competitive marketplace. While we cannot stop the movement of much manufacturing, we can develop a healthier and more progressive attitude toward entrepreneurship, self-employment, and organizational creation.’ Photo via flickr.com/photos/boojee.”]

var addthis_config = {
data_track_clickback: true
}

This week is Small Business Week across Canada. To mark the occasion, the Student Success Centre is hosting a number of events meant to help students learn more about entrepreneurship and self-employment.

Below, McMaster's Teresa Cascioli Chair in Entrepreneurial Leadership Benson Honig writes about the importance of small business to the Canadian economy, both now and in the future.

Small Business Week is an increasingly important activity for Canadians, and particularly for Hamiltonians. As our large manufacturing plants move abroad, our labour markets need to make critical transformations that depend on small businesses to fill the labour gap.

Besides providing the majority of employment, small businesses also lead in innovation and emergent and creative industries. They represent nothing less than our economic future and prosperity. This is one reason that Hamilton's Chamber of Commerce re-branded themselves as “Hamilton, City of Entrepreneurs”.

New small businesses are where well-educated Canadians stand to benefit the most in a globally competitive marketplace. While we cannot stop the movement of much manufacturing, we can develop a healthier and more progressive attitude toward entrepreneurship, self-employment, and organizational creation. The trick is to use our human capital to provide intellectual property and innovative advantage in a global world. We need to encourage Canadians of all ages to reach for more than just a comfortable career and to consider the rewards and autonomy of self-employment.

I see my role, as the Teresa Cascioli Chair in Entrepreneurial Leadership at McMaster, as assisting students throughout our campus to advance their intentions, prospects and abilities to launch new businesses, or facilitate the entrepreneurial efforts already underway in our community.

For example, each winter semester I teach a specially designed interdisciplinary graduate level evening course (B748) to help McMaster students evaluate their interest in entrepreneurial ventures, and to expose them to the details of launching and/or running a small business. I bring in local entrepreneurs from the GTA, as well as highlight potential entrepreneurial projects taking place on campus, and facilitate student team interaction with these real-life business endeavours.

Together, we develop an exciting environment that helps students assess their suitability for the trials and rewards of an entrepreneurial career. This course is open to any graduate student on campus, and requires no special background in business. The interdisciplinary teams that develop in this course are similar to those that occur outside the University – providing a strong measure of reality to the experience.

Small Business Week represents our economic future. It provides an important opportunity to showcase mentors, role models, and alternative career prospects. I urge you to get involved and find out more.

Benson Honig joined the faculty of the DeGroote School of Business last July as the Teresa Cascioli Chair in Entrepreneurial Leadership. Studying entrepreneurship worldwide, his research includes business planning, nascent entrepreneurship, transnational entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, social capital, and entrepreneurship in environments of transition. He has published widely in leading academic journals and the media, and serves on six editorial boards, including the Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice and the Journal of Management Studies. He is immediate past president of the Canadian Counsel of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, is on the board of the Babson entrepreneurship conference and the board of the International Counsel for Small Business. He is also an editor for Financial Times Top 45 Journal.

Share

Stay connected