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By ROCHELLE DEAN

In economies that are slightly behind their modern industrial counterparts, entrepreneurship is often viewed as an important component in stimulating economic growth, innovation, competitiveness and in alleviating poverty.

There are many factors that affect entrepreneurship in developing countries, including the lack of capital and financial innovation.

This is no different in the Bahamas as entrepreneurs are faced with having to turn to external financial sources that charge high interest rates due to the risk, foreseen or unforeseen, within the nature of new business projects.

This has forced many entrepreneurs to find jobs or other means of income to sustain their businesses and themselves. While the advantages of this are that we foster diversification, which leans to preparing Bahamians for the global market, it speaks to the strength of the country’s domestic market.

The Bahamas must recognise that this type of entrepeneurial practice allows its nationals to focus on niche markets where there are less needs and where major markets are crowded with other businesses. This method opens a gateway for people to learn and become informed through self knowledge about the way that growth-oriented firms become successful.

Entrepreneurship is heavily influenced by cultural beliefs and the Bahamas must now consider how understanding these differences and becoming culturally aware are critical components in fully understanding the entrepreneurial activities in the country.

The Bahamas must now define entrepreunership and seek to encourage growth within this area by giving clarity as to the formal and informal economy, stress the idea that self-employment is simply not entreprenuership but the means of stepping toward being an entreprenuer, and seek the means to encourage lending opportunities for good ideas to propel the country in the right direction.

Organisations committed to entrepreneurial growth like the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation, which are committed to uniting and strengthening the mercantile interest of its members, has done a good job in marginalising its members’ growth and forming oligopolies (in which a market or industry is dominated by a small number of sellers).

It is the responsiblity of the government to assist its people in becoming entrepreneurs and not self-employed individuals.

While the government and organisations encourage the start-up of SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), which are important to the domestic market due to their yield for employment, most small scale entrepreneurs are survival entrepreneurs who are driven by profit.

The degree to which entrepreneurs will engage in techincal, innovation and specialisation depends on the size, functioning and understanding of the market itself. SMEs’ dynamism derives from profitability and flexible labour markets. Without these two elements our market is in crisis.

The Bahamas must begin to give a more hands-on approach to entrepreneurship by making grants easily accessible to up-and-coming individuals with good ideas. It is important for the Chamber to lend support to these individuals.

The country must also begin to eradicate poverty through working together to foster a domestic market that has enough growth potential so that entrepreneurship is an option and not a means of getting by. The Bahamian people have generated a culture that the rich stay rich while those with good ideas and the potential to become rich need not apply.

It has created a mindset of survival rather than thriving and working toward positive financial outcomes, including free-thinking, financial freedom and innovation.

The domestic market in the Bahamas has been restricted by inappropriate regulations or strangled by predatory leaders and monopolies and there is little incentive for entrepreneurs to introduce innovations that are new to their businesses and will impact the market and society at large.

The Bahamas must now seek to revive a dead domestic market that has not fully prepared the nation to embrace globalisation and competition. Entrepreneurship stems from diversification, which brings concentration and expertise because, as a country grows to becoming a wealthy nation, its people will promote moving away from the informal to the formal.

Bob Marley, the influential Caribbean musician and entertainer said: “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery.” Let’s free ourselves from the thinking of our predecessors that was fitting for establishing the building blocks of an independent colony.

Rochelle R Dean is a Bahamian scholar, research fellow and peer-reviewer and a theory writer of economics presently completing a Bachelors of Science dual degree in economics and public administration with Liberty University, Lynchburg, Virginia.