ENTREPRENEURIAL POTENTIAL: ESSENCE AND ROLE OF A SOCIOLOGIST IN ITS STUDY

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For quite a long time, the main area of ​​my scientific interests was related to the topic of entrepreneurship (my first basic education was economic), namely, with the study of the essence of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial activity, with the issues of reviving entrepreneurship in Russia, with the study of the conditions for the functioning of entrepreneurship in Russia, with the introduction of entrepreneurial elements into large corporate structures. The last topic of my research in the field of entrepreneurship concerned the formation of entrepreneurial potential in the Russian economy, on the state and possibilities of accumulation and implementation of which the future of Russia largely depends. Interest in this issue was associated not only with the fact that it has recently become "fashionable" to talk about "potentials", but also with the fact that in the literature there are still practically no independent studies devoted to the analysis and assessment of "entrepreneurial potential." ", So to speak, in a pure, ontological, form. In the studied scientific works, the concept of "entrepreneurial potential" is often replaced by the concepts of labor potential, production potential, economic potential, resource potential, which does not allow us to understand all the economic and sociological patterns associated with the category of "entrepreneurial potential".
Now I am a 2nd year graduate student of the Faculty of Sociology. And the research question became interesting to me: "How can sociologists be useful in the field of studying, building up entrepreneurial potential, a country, a region?"
Before answering this question, let's understand the essence of the concept of "entrepreneurial potential". Determining in this "double" concept is the definition of the potential. An analysis of the existing definitions of "potential" showed that there are various interpretations of this concept in science. We analyzed 17 sources from different sciences (philosophical, economic, technical, sociological), which allowed us to classify different interpretations of the definition of potential according to criteria such as “ability”, “aggregate”, “opportunity” [1-17].
Aristotle defined potency (potentiality, potential) as the possibility of the emergence of new determinations. Aristotle's triad (Possibility (potency, potentiality) - Energy (action, activity, actualization, implementation) - Entelechy (reality, actualization, fulfillment)) became the original ontological structure of European philosophy. Energy in this structure acts as the final element of realization, realizing the essence (essence) and thus subordinate to it.
Aristotle's metaphysics considers reality to be entirely subordinate to the system of previous forms, goals, entelechies, that is, a specific event (being) appears as emanating from a certain previous basis. Reality is the unity of actual and potential being. The ability to change is rooted in a particular thing. Potency is considered by Aristotle as the beginning of a change in things, as the ability to move and the ability to comprehend this movement. Each thing contains the following potencies: transition to another state and preservation of its state unchanged [1. S. 108-120, 349.] Thus, the classical philosophical tradition, leading from Aristotle and blessed. Augustine, uses the model of ontological splitting, which includes two horizons of being (actual and potential), and the essential (essentialist) nature of the main categories and relationships.
Modern science has borrowed the term "potential" from physics, where it defines the amount of energy that a system has accumulated and which it is able to realize in work. With regard to an individual or an organizational system that implements the functions of goal-setting and goal-fulfillment, potential is reduced to the means, reserves or sources available and that can be used to achieve a specific goal.
In the science of science, potential began to be considered as a unity (set) of qualitative and quantitative indicators characterizing the available resources and the state of the subject using them.

While recognizing the justification of defining potential as a set of resources at the initial stage of empirical generalization, it should be borne in mind that this definition cannot be completely reduced to available resources simply because, under different conditions of use, the same resources are not a guarantee of obtaining the same results of their use.
Unlike Aristotelian metaphysics, existentialists do not recognize the primacy of essence over existence, they deny existence as a procession to a predetermined goal (previous form, etc.). In the ideas of existentialists, energy moves away from entelechy and approaches a possibility, appears as an initial impulse, an actual initiative of a certain movement or action, autonomous from the essence (goal, form), as well as from entelechy.
The energetic nature of the subject appears as a continuously changing set of heterogeneous energies with which the subject is endowed at every moment, and reality loses its essentialist determinism. The dynamics of reality has an open and non-equilibrium character, it is not reduced to any system of goals and forms, does not imply any entelechy, that is, a predetermined final state. The concept of dynamic and de-essentialized energy is consistent with modern quantum physics and cosmology.
Revealing the beingness of an event takes place in the horizon of a person (consciousness according to E. Husserl or existence according to M. Heidegger), and the event itself simultaneously represents the realization of the beingness of the person himself. Being becomes human, being distinguishable by man, and man becomes being, distinguishing being. Reality itself in existentialist discourse appears not as a synonym for entelechy, but as the reality of a person with the mutual belonging of a person and being. In reality, a person, the latter acts as an active center, and the energies of a person are grouped into "energy images", each of which is generated by a person (an active center) and belongs to him.
Conscious and purposeful economic activity of economic agents is predetermined by the values ​​of behavior that have developed in them, the formation of which is influenced by national and general civilizational cultural attitudes, group ideology, morality, ethics, the state of the legal, political and religious spheres of society. Such attitudes, considered as the initial condition of any economic activity, act as motivational factors that predetermine different options and, consequently, different efficiency of the activities of various economic agents up to national methods of economic organization that have their own specifics. Potential is always associated with uncertainty (both the external environment and the individual decisions of the entrepreneurs themselves).
The potential correlates with the future with the field of possible states, each of which has a different significance for the economic agent, that is, the agent builds a weight function of values ​​over the field of possible states. The subject's choice of his own behavior is predetermined by this filtering probabilistically given function, which affects the distribution function of possible states.
The past state and previous experience of the agent are projected onto the weight of the values ​​of future states, that is, the latter chooses future behavior from the potential variety of options for influencing the present economic reality through changing its past state on the basis of creating a new image (pattern) that largely determines subsequent behavior. The experience accumulated by an individual, the similarity of the behavior of various people, the commonality of the means and methods they use in economic activity, testifies to the invariance to the whole variety of personal behavior of various individuals, which allows us to assume that here we are dealing with a field of possible ways of behavior for cluster members. Consequently, society in its multifaceted mosaicity contains clusters, each of which is organically characterized by one invariant of behavior of its members.

The potential has a subjective-objective (heterogeneous) nature.
Potential is a predictive category due to the fact that a social subject is able to foresee the possible consequences of his actions.
Each subject, carrying out many types of activities, assesses the amount of risk based on its internal criteria and requirements imposed by the external environment, determines its own limits of risk acceptability in each specific situation.
The concept of potential connects the present and the future. The potential characterizes the variation of the various consequences of the activity, given in time. The same changes, functioning and development of systems of different levels have different degrees of danger. Some social groups are losing their traditional living conditions and habitats, relationships with other groups, types of labor activity, socio-cultural attitudes, etc., which leads to the loss of these groups of quality certainty, can lead to their disintegration or destruction. Other social groups see in the changes the possibility of social and economic losses, entailing an increase in socio-political tension in society. Finally, for third social groups, changes make it possible to acquire new material, social and spiritual benefits, or to redistribute them in society in their favor. The latter social group, as a rule, includes entrepreneurs.
To expand the field of possible states, it is necessary to expand a person's consciousness, a broad vision of reality, filled with all the wealth of knowledge and experience gained in a variety of cultures.
Thus, the use of the existentialist-probabilistic method of cognition makes it possible to reveal the value of entrepreneurial potential, which is associated with the result of entrepreneurs' management due to the use of entrepreneurial abilities (and hence the involvement of other factors of production - capital, labor, land - in economic activity). In this regard, the entrepreneurial potential extends to the field of possible states of the entire economic system (from micro- to macro-enterprises), with the aim of realizing entrepreneurial abilities in the best possible state of the considered economic levels.
This understanding of entrepreneurial potential (as a field of possible states) is fundamentally different from other definitions: both the totality of resources and the totality of the abilities and capabilities of entrepreneurs themselves (the last definition of entrepreneurial potential is present, for example, in the work of I.E. Cheplyaev [5. P. 31], and, in my opinion, it would be more correct to call the potential of an entrepreneur.
The entrepreneurial potential at the micro level associated with the activities of microeconomic entities largely depends on the state of the macroeconomic potential, on the achievement of the stability of the conditions common to all business entities (external factors of the business environment). These conditions include the state of the investment climate of the country and regions, the level of inflation and other market indicators, the state of the political, socio-cultural, demographic and other spheres. Tax, customs, financial and credit, foreign economic, as well as legislative policy of the state in relation to the support and development of entrepreneurship determines the level of business activity in the national economy and its taxonomic components.

Thus, in the author's definition of entrepreneurial potential, the emphasis is not on the totality of something and not on the abilities of someone, but on the balance of objectively acting external factors and consciously formed impact on economic entities. The latter constitutes a socio-economic environment that creates incentives for entrepreneurial activity (in addition to the internal personal motives of entrepreneurs realizing their creative abilities, the pattern of behavior of a social group of entrepreneurs), identifying and actively using the opportunities provided by the entrepreneurial potential, whether it be a national economy or an individual ...
In Russia today, there is a low level of realization of entrepreneurial potential due to the instability of the socio-economic situation, which constrains the motives for entrepreneurial activity. Our country continues to remain uncompetitive in the world arena, and the incomes of the population are much lower than the European average. In solving this problem, a huge role is assigned to the identification and study of internal (personal) and external incentive factors that form motives for entrepreneurial activity. Better than the entrepreneurs themselves, no one will tell you about this. This issue was the starting point of my sociological research, the results of which will be published later. The only remark is that the object of my research will not be any active entrepreneurs, but young entrepreneurs (according to statistical methodology, these are people under 35). This is due to scientific research and foreign practice, which show that the earlier they start to form an entrepreneurial way of thinking, to attract them to entrepreneurial activity, the more successfully people realize themselves as entrepreneurs in the future.
The purpose of my sociological research being developed is to analyze subjective ideas about internal and external factors that form motivation for entrepreneurial activity among young people. To make the research more qualitative, it involves two stages of research using different research methods.

The first qualitative stage of the research involves the use of in-depth interviews. The objectives of the qualitative stage of the research:
1) to analyze the opinions of subjects of entrepreneurial activity for their internal motives for involvement in entrepreneurial activity (their needs, interests, interests). What is their activity for them;
2) find out their personal experience of entrepreneurial activity, in what they see successes and mistakes;
3) how the factors of the external business environment in Russia are personally assessed;
4) whether there was an experience of turning to government agencies for support. If so, what kind of support they received. What we liked and what we didn't. Determine their attitude to the effectiveness of methods and techniques for supporting and developing entrepreneurship;
5) describe what else the state can do, in their opinion, to increase the number of business entities in Russia.
The second stage of the study is aimed at determining the "depth" of the internal and external factors identified at the first stage of the study, prompting for entrepreneurial activity by means of a formalized interview.
The objectives of the quantitative stage of the research: to determine how much (level of satisfaction):
1) describe the level of satisfaction (that is, how much) young entrepreneurs are satisfied with the external conditions for doing business in Russia;
2) quantitatively present the structure of motives;
3) analyze the regularity of support - to determine how often young entrepreneurs have resorted to support and development of entrepreneurial activity;
4) describe the level of satisfaction with certain factors of support and development of entrepreneurial activity;
5) quantitatively describe the support measures identified in the qualitative research, which government agencies should provide primarily in order to increase business entities.
Such an analysis, in my opinion, should contribute to the enrichment of knowledge about the entrepreneurial potential in Russia, about its more rational use.

About the authors

Marina Gavrilova

Author for correspondence.
Email: gavrilova.mar@yandex.ru
SPIN-code: 5221-3278

Студент магистратуры II курса социологического факультета Самарского университета

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