Sources of entrepreneurship in South East Asia

Abstract

It is widely accepted that human motivations and abilities are the most important factor in achieving economic development. Generating and energising human action requires leadership, primarily in the economic and political spheres. The 'ideal-type' leader in the economic field is the entrepreneur. Accordingly, the progress of the developing nations will be enhanced if they are able to produce more and better entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, most of the developing world is conspicuously short of indigenous entrepreneurs. In Southeast Asia, for example, the typical economic pattern, up until very recently, has been a three-tiered system. On top were the Europeans, controlling most of the plantations and mines, the import and export businesses, and the banks. In the middle were the Chinese - and to a lesser extent Indians in an almost symbiotic relationship to the Europeans, controlling the retail trade and most other parts of the modern economic sector not pre-empted by the Europeans. And on the bottom were the indigenous peoples, confined primarily to the subsistence sector of the economy, including small-scale manufacturing, distributing and services at the strictly local level.