An empirical analysis of the Singapore entrepreneurship ecosystem: A case study for bric economies to ponder

Abstract

This paper examines the current status of entrepreneurship take-up rate amongst tertiary students and graduates in the Singapore environment. A study was conducted recently—incorporating a questionnaire survey, one-on-one interviews, secondary research and a stakeholders’ analysis in the entrepreneurship ecosystem. In this paper, the author hypothesizes the disconnection amongst social attitudes, public policies, integration factors and market size amongst others—as roadblocks that might have affected the growth of a world-class knowledge-based enterprise pool. He is also concerned that traditional norms of targeting salaried jobs as careers had caused prevailing situations of unemployment and underemployment amongst tertiary graduates. His strategies proposed include marrying “knowledge practitioners” to an enterprise mechanism as the solution to build financial self-sufficiency and self-esteem.