Practice Disciplines
Entrepreneurship
AHN-truh-pruh-NUR-ship
Also Known As Venture Creation
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The practice discipline of creating or extracting economic value by identifying and commercializing opportunities to deliver new products or services, typically requiring considerable innovation, initiative and risk taking.
Facts
Disputed
Discipline ScopeVenture founding and growth, spanning functionalistic approaches that study entrepreneurs' traits and processual approaches that study the entrepreneurial process in context. 1 Scholars disagree on the discipline's own boundaries: functionalistic approaches study entrepreneurs' individual traits, while processual approaches study the entrepreneurial process in its economic and social context, and no single account is settled as authoritative. Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Carnegie's rise from bobbin boy to steel magnate is a canonical example used in entrepreneurship scholarship of opportunity recognition and venture-building.
Crowdfunding lowers the capital-raising barrier entrepreneurship traditionally required from banks or venture investors, letting founders fund ventures directly from prospective backers.
Bezos's founding and scaling of Amazon from an online bookstore into a global platform is a standard entrepreneurship case study in opportunity identification and venture growth.
Platform businesses, which create value by facilitating exchange between two or more customer groups, are a common vehicle for the venture founding that defines entrepreneurship.
Technology districts formed specifically around clusters of tech startups (entrepreneurial ventures by definition) opening alongside established tech companies; the industry's own account of its geography names startup formation as a driver.
Sources
1. Wikipedia, Entrepreneurship
Wikipediamain article body, first paragraphQuote, main article body, first paragraph
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value through identification and commercialization of opportunities to deliver products or services.
1. Wikipedia, Entrepreneurship
WikipediaElements section, SchumpeterQuote, Elements section, Schumpeter
Entrepreneurship employs what Schumpeter called 'the gale of creative destruction' to replace in whole or in part inferior innovations across markets and industries, simultaneously creating new products, including new business models.
1. Wikipedia, Entrepreneurship
WikipediaElements section, KirznerQuote, Elements section, Kirzner
An alternative description posited by Israel Kirzner suggests that the majority of innovations may be much more incremental improvements such as the replacement of paper with plastic in the making of drinking straws.
1. Wikipedia, Entrepreneurship
Wikipedialead sectionQuote, lead section
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value through identification and commercialization of opportunities to deliver products or services
1. Wikipedia, Entrepreneurship
WikipediaAssociated With: Andrew Carnegie, Historians' assessment and ranking sectionQuote, Associated With: Andrew Carnegie, Historians' assessment and ranking section
A 2002 survey of 58 business history professors gave the top spots in American business history to Henry Ford, followed by Bill Gates; John D. Rockefeller; Andrew Carnegie, and Thomas Edison.
1. Wikipedia, Entrepreneurship
WikipediaOpen Questions: Whether Entrepreneurship Is Best Explained by Trait or ProcessView the Source Wikipedia, Platform Economy
WikipediaAssociated With: Platform Business Model, Business model sectionQuote, Associated With: Platform Business Model, Business model section
The platform business model involves generating profits by facilitating interactions between two or more distinct groups of users.
Wikipedia, Jeff Bezos
WikipediaAssociated With: Jeff Bezos, lead sectionQuote, Associated With: Jeff Bezos, lead section
He is the founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce and cloud computing company.
Wikipedia, Crowdfunding
WikipediaAssociated With: Crowdfunding, lead sectionQuote, Associated With: Crowdfunding, lead section
Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet.
Wikipedia, Technology Company
WikipediaAssociated With: Technology Industry, Details sectionQuote, Associated With: Technology Industry, Details section
As a result of numerous influential tech companies and tech startups opening offices in proximity to one another, a number of technology districts have developed in various areas across the globe.
Open Questions (1 open question)
Whether Entrepreneurship Is Best Explained by Trait or Process
Entrepreneurship scholarship has not settled whether the field is best studied through the functionalistic (trait-based) approach, which focuses on the individual entrepreneur's own characteristics and actions, or the processual (contextual) approach, which studies the interplay between the entrepreneur and their surrounding context.
What would resolve this A unifying framework, or a body of empirical work the field broadly accepts as decisive, that reconciles or replaces the trait-based and process-based perspectives.
Entrepreneurship studies and management theoryWikipedia, Entrepreneurship
Dissenting Readings (2 dissenting readings)
Discipline Scope
Entrepreneurial innovation is not centrally Schumpeterian creative destruction. Most innovations are incremental improvements to existing offerings, such as substituting one material for another in an existing product, and require no special entrepreneurial trait beyond alertness to opportunity.
A dissenting reading, from Israel KirznerWikipedia, Entrepreneurship, Wikipedia
Discipline Scope
Joseph Schumpeter described entrepreneurship as a gale of creative destruction that replaces inferior offerings wholesale. Israel Kirzner disputed that framing, arguing most entrepreneurial innovation is incremental, such as substituting one material for another in an existing product, and requires no special entrepreneurial trait beyond alertness to an opportunity already available to anyone paying attention.
A dissenting reading, from an independent laneWikipedia, Entrepreneurship, Wikipedia
Frequently Asked Questions
Does entrepreneurship always mean radical, disruptive innovation?
No; scholars disagree, with Kirzner arguing most entrepreneurial innovation is incremental rather than transformational.
Not by every account. Joseph Schumpeter described entrepreneurship as a gale of creative destruction that replaces inferior offerings wholesale, but Israel Kirzner argued most innovation is incremental, such as substituting one material for another in an existing product, and requires no special entrepreneurial trait.
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