ENTREPRENEURSHIP THEORY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE RUSSIAN ECONOMY’S NEW CHALLENGES

The relevance of the study is determined by the growing demand in the entrepreneurship which can have the opportunity find reasonable solutions to the issues of various nature and scales in the changing Russian economy. Under such conditions it seems important to develop theoretical foundations of entrepreneurship, given that this theory has a number of methodological problems that bring to misleading outcomes. The paper contains an attempt to define the concept of “entrepreneurship” based on the original synthesis of old and new theories in order to integrate the objectives, functions, modern needs of entrepreneurship, society and the economy as a whole. At the same time, it emphasizes that entrepreneurship cannot be regarded as a driving force in the economy, but only as a factor of its stabilization. The work studies the evolution of views on the economic essence of entrepreneurship and presents the conclusion that there is a fundamental basis for the disclosure of its nature, properties and business functions. The authors summarize the common approaches to defining the essence of this category, and cast doubt on the entrepreneur’s function solely from the perspective of personal monetary gain. The paper differentiates the concepts of “self-employment” and “entrepreneurship” from the perspective of the innovative features implementation. It is emphasized that self-employment does not boost the growth of one’s own business due to lack of initiative in the development of innovative processes, and does not solve the problem of innovational and investment weakness in modern Russia. The paper clarifies the definition of entrepreneurship as a special risk, proactive activity aimed at the creation of new deviations from the equilibrium state of the economic system to ensure a higher level of satisfaction of all its participants.