They're almost two different animals. An entrepreneur has a heart to produce results with whatever creative challenges they have. I feel that a business owner is more profit based and has a head for business. I guess you could say it's a heart V. head thing.
Just my opinion, but in my mind this is how I see it:
Entrepreneur = visionary
Business Owner = does what needs to be done
I feel a business owner could be successful at something they don't necessarily love, whereas an Entrepreneur is always creating and pushing the boundaries
A. ENTREPRENEUR:
He or she possesses:
1. An Idea
2. A market niche
3. The desire to control individual destiny
4. The willingness to learn how to run an enterprise
5. Ability to work hard.
6. The desire to build unique entities that are individually their own
B. BUSINESS OWNER:
The person or persons registered on the Articles of Incorporation with the state as the rightful holders of employer and tax I.D. numbers for an enterprise when it is registered to become a business.
DIFFERENCE:
A may = B but not always.
There are silent partnerships, financing arrangements, operating agreements and other circumstances whereby the entrpreneurial drive behind an enterpirse is not vested in the owner.
Holding companies and similar corporate identities make owners removed from the entrpreneurial level and public companies sell stock making the stock holders owners in businesses.
Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway's entrenrurial niche, in fact is finding entrpreneurs and good long term investments that pay off.
Most business owners start there businesses because they are very good at what they do! They run the business and are more technical in nature with a large leaning to opertional duties in the business as well as all getting involved in all aspects of the business from Admin, Accounts, HR, Strategice Development, Personal Dev, IT, Marketing and Sales etc
An entrepreneur is somebody who is "opportunity obsessed". He has the ability to take the opportunity, look for recources to exploit the opportunity and most imortantly if a team is needed an entrepreneur has the ability to identify people who compliment his weaknesses with the aim to build a profitable enterprise that can be sold or harvested for a capital gain. An etrepreneur will then seek out further ventures with similar aim.
Personally I think entrepreneurs and business owners represent two very different populations but there is some overlap (represented by an intersection if they were represented in a ven diagram).
The big differences I've seen can be summed as:
Business owners are focused on execution.
Entrepreneurship are focused on vision.
Additionally, entrepreneurship is a way of looking at the world that is more about creation, innovation, and (re)imagination and less about P&L and the operating aspects of running a business.
There are plenty of examples of entrepreneurs who have started successful businesses but rarely do they stick around once their vision has been realized.
Big companies are beginning to see the value which entrepreneurs can bring to a business and there is a big push in corporate America to foster Intraprenuership within big corporations. I think this trend will make great strides to blur the lines between the 2 further and make businesses more entrepreneurial.
I guess my final comment would be that even though the two may be different in all the ways mentioned, both of them need to imbue similar aspects into their journey to really succeed - Passion, Motivation, Know their North Star, Know Why they're on that Path, be able to Grow Professionally as well as Personally and so on. So they may be differently orientated, but still need the same impetus's in their own individualistic way.