IMPLICATIONS OF AN ENTREPRENEURIAL STRUCTURE CONCEPT AND BASIC APPROACHES TO ITS INTERPRETATION

Abstract

The paper discusses the implications of an entrepreneurial structure concept definitions widely employed within the scope of domestic scientific research along with summarizing a range of different perspectives on this concept interpretations. This study presents seven approaches to capture the essence of the entrepreneurial structure concept. According to the first approach, identification occurs of the concepts of an entrepreneurial structure and an enterprise in the frameworks of the traditional understanding of the latter. The second approach views entrepreneurial structure as a business entity. Both approaches view the notions of entrepreneurial structure and enterprise identically focusing on their economic autonomy. Under the third approach, an entrepreneurial structure is considered as a type of a commercial entity. This approach, like the previous ones, also identifies the concept of an enterprise and entrepreneurial structure, in this case with an emphasis on their commercial activity and registration as a legal entity. The fourth approach suggests the interpretation of an entrepreneurial structure as participants (the subjects) of market relationships, which considerably broadens our understanding against the traditional viewpoint. The fifth (systematic) approach allows for a more comprehensive study of an entrepreneurial structure as a complex object in terms of its perception as a single integral system. The proponents of the sixth approach identify the entrepreneurial structure concept with the notion of a company organizational structure. In the context of the seventh approach, the identification of the concepts of entrepreneurial structure and a business structure occurs. Based on the above approaches generalization, the findings discuss their benefits and shortcomings as to the interpretation of the concept under study and suggests the common characteristics of an entrepreneurial structure that are inherent to an enterprise, too. The study also revealed the essential differences between the notions of an enterprise and entrepreneurial structure which are manifested in the objectives of their activities, their business focus, organizational structure, the presence of representative offices and affiliated branches in their structure, demonstration of manufacturing, technological, economic and organisational unity as well as their financial autonomy. It is argued that. Conventional understanding of an enterprise as an independent entity and crucial element of the economy operating in the changing external environment should be expanded subject to modern global development trends towards evolutionary transformation of individual enterprises into business structures.