Entrepreneurship as a euphemism for self-employment

The present article argues that the terms "self-employment" and "entrepreneurship" are used indistinctly, and although similarities do exist, the purpose, approaches and consequences of the two terms are very different. Firstly, an analysis of some of the characteristics of self-employment compared to entrepreneurship shows that there are obvious differences regarding their aim, strategies and financing among others. We thus propose a definition to distinguish both terms arguing that the strategic purpose of self-employment is the creation and maintenance of employment while the strategic purpose of entrepreneurship is the creation of added value to society and a clear vocation for activity growth. After considering possible causes of the terminological confusion, some criteria were established in order to distinguish both terms. From the educational point of view and that of institutional support, the repercussions of the lack of differentiation are obvious, since two activities with different needs could be being treated in the same way. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license