دانلود رایگان مقاله کارآفرینی مولد یا غیرمولد و مخرب

Abstract

We identify an ambiguity surrounding institutions and entrepreneurship. While entrepreneurship creates social value at the economy level in the appropriate institutional environment, individual entrepreneurs may create or destroy value in any institutional environment. This raises the question: under what conditions does entrepreneurship create social value? Social value creation depends on the entrepreneur's next best alternative, and institutions are constraints on the relevant alternatives. Hence, society is better off when entrepreneurs navigate poor institutions relative to reduced entrepreneurial activity. Furthermore, entrepreneurs engaging in seemingly “productive” activity need not create social value. We illustrate the argument with two examples.

5. Conclusions

We identify a theoretical ambiguity surrounding institutions and entrepreneurship. Namely, while entrepreneurship creates social value at the economy level in the appropriate institutional environment, entrepreneurs may create or destroy value as they pursue their individual plans in any institutional environment. Our work indicates that increased discussion of the rules governing entrepreneurial action is necessary. Institutional context matters (Boettke and Coyne, 2009), and the line between context and action must be clarified. In the present view, whether any entrepreneurial endeavor creates social value can only be measured relative to the alternatives available to the entrepreneur. An explicit appreciation of the constraints entrepreneurs face will allow precision in identifying the positive and negative implications of both entrepreneurial action and entrepreneurship policy across institutional environments.