The term "entrepreneur" itself originates in France in the 18th century. Firstly the economist Cantillon uses the description entrepreneur. With it he circumscribes businessmen who bear themselves all risks of profit and loss within their transactions and who accept with it a certain insecurity relating to their income.

In the beginning of the 20th century Schumpeter took in hand the modern addendum of this term. He defines the character of the businessman function as identification and implementing of new possibilities in the economic fields. He references these facts as well to the introduction and respectively modification of products or methods of production, as to the creation of new organizational forms and the opening of new business and buying markets.

Along the way Schumpeter adds to the term entrepreneurship the element of innovation, being the core element of this attitude today. In past years entrepreneurship is to be understood as a process in the abstract concept of management. It describes in the economic areas open-minded and unorthodox thinking and acting with the intention, to discover and to use chances - independent and off the beaten tracks and fixed contours of single business fields. This is business dealing, not only reflecting in products, but also in that way of doing of the entrepreneurship, the management and the personnel management.