Think about how you bought your last pair of shoes. Maybe you tapped a phone, the shoes arrived in two days, and you never spoke to a salesperson. Fifty years ago, none of that was possible. Somebody had to invent the online store, the delivery system and the payment method, and each of those changes created new jobs while making some old ones disappear. An agent of change is a person or organization that causes something important to change. Entrepreneurs are some of the most powerful agents of change, both in their own neighbourhoods and across the world.
How Local Entrepreneurs Affect Their Communities
- Jobs: local businesses hire local people, often giving students their first job.
- Spending: wages and purchases from local suppliers circulate through the community, supporting other businesses.
- Leadership: business owners often lead chambers of commerce, business improvement areas, service clubs and community events.
- Sponsorships: a local pizza shop sponsoring a youth hockey team or buying a yearbook ad helps pay for school and community activities.
- Scholarships and donations: many local entrepreneurs fund scholarships for graduating students or donate to food banks and charities.
- Services: a new business can fill a gap, such as the first grocery store or pharmacy in a small town.
Three Kinds of Entrepreneurial Change
| Kind of change | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| New products | Goods or services that did not exist before or are greatly improved | The snowmobile developed in Quebec by Joseph-Armand Bombardier's company made it easier to travel over snow |
| New methods of production | New ways of making goods or delivering services | The moving assembly line in early car factories made cars faster and cheaper to build |
| New ways of doing business | New ways of selling, paying, delivering or organizing | E-commerce lets businesses sell online to anyone; platforms such as Shopify let small businesses set up online stores; ride-sharing apps connect drivers and riders directly |
Effects on Workers, Consumers and Business People
Change is rarely all good or all bad. The same innovation can help one group and hurt another, and it can help a group in one way while hurting it in another. When you describe the effects of a change, look at three groups separately: workers (the people who do the jobs), consumers (the people who buy) and business people (owners and managers, including competitors). For each group, list at least one positive and one negative effect.
| Change | Workers | Consumers | Business people |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assembly line | Positive: more factory jobs and often higher wages. Negative: repetitive, tiring work with less skill involved | Positive: products became cheaper, so more people could afford them. Negative: less variety at first | Positive: much higher productivity. Negative: competitors who did not adopt it fell behind |
| E-commerce | Positive: new jobs in warehouses, delivery, web design and digital marketing. Negative: fewer jobs in some physical stores | Positive: more choice, lower prices, shopping any time. Negative: cannot try before buying; privacy risks | Positive: small ventures can reach customers everywhere. Negative: local stores face stronger competition |
| Ride-sharing | Positive: flexible ways to earn money. Negative: income can be unsteady, with fewer benefits than a traditional job | Positive: convenient rides, upfront prices, cashless payment. Negative: surge pricing at busy times | Positive: a new kind of platform business. Negative: taxi businesses lost customers |
Student Ventures as Agents of Change
Change does not have to be global. A student who launches an online ordering system for the school store changes how students buy lunch. A tutoring service that offers free sessions to newcomer students changes who gets support. A reusable-bottle refill station run by the environment club changes how much plastic the school throws away. Each of these follows the same pattern as the big examples: spot a need, take a risk, create a new product, method or way of doing business, and affect workers, consumers and other organizations along the way.