The Oxford Handbook of Entrepreneurship (original) (raw)

Institutions, Opportunities, and the Strategy of Entrepreneurship

This article attempts to tackle the questions concerning the impact of formal and informal institutions on the identification, evaluation and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities and the direction of entrepreneurial strategies. Entrepreneurship, whether within or without an existing firm, thrives in an uncertain environment characterized by widely dispersed knowledge, mutual interdependence of decision-making, and heterogeneity of both expectations and capital. This environment demands strategic actions that are unique to the entrepreneurial firm, and the resulting strategic orientation has profound implications for the relationship between entrepreneurial activity and the formal and informal institutions that guide and constrain its direction and functions. The article explores the unique strategic aspects of entrepreneurship and, in doing so, develops a framework for analyzing the impact of institutions on entrepreneurial action.

Entrepreneurship and Institutions

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

In this paper entrepreneurs are defined as agents who bring about economic change by combining their own effort with other factors of production in search of economic rents. The institutional setup is argued to determine both the supply and direction of entrepreneurial activity. Four key institutions are explored more closely: property rights protection, savings policies, taxation and the regulation of labor markets. Institutions have far-reaching effects on entrepreneurship, and they largely determine whether or not entrepreneurial activity will be socially productive. Due to the responsiveness of entrepreneurship to the institutional setup it is maintained that in-depth analyses of specific institutions are required in order to further our understanding of the determinants of entrepreneurial behavior and the economic effects of entrepreneurship. The paper also demonstrates that it is problematic to use self-employment as an empirical proxy for productive entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship and Institutional Environment: Perspectives from the Review of Literature

European Journal of Business and Management, 2014

The present study reveals how entrepreneurship and institutional environment has been addressed in the past theoretically and empirically. Main premise is to provide a broad overview of the existing studies on entrepreneurship and institutional environment throughout the world; show its development and movement over the past decades and fuse its findings on the basis of the insights gained from the review of the related literature. A methodical search was conducted in the leading journals of entrepreneurship. A total of 103 articles and research papers were reviewed. This methodical literature review not only increases the lucidity of the available literature but unveils significant areas for future research as well.

Institutional Foundations of Entrepreneurship: An Introduction and Cross-country Comparisons

Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, 2007

Entrepreneurship is a principal source of economic growth in both developed and developing countries. As entrepreneurship is concerned with commercializing new products and services, it is a major driver of technological advancement and a primary source of wealth creation not only to those who undertake it (Hitt and Reed, 2000) but also to the society at large. All privately-owned firms have formed and developed as a result of entrepreneurial endeavor at some point in their history (Schumpeter, 1934; Kirzner, 1973; Baumol, 1990). In a generic sense, all firms undertaking entrepreneurship follow a common set of processes: they all engage in identifying, evaluating and exploiting opportunities for wealth creation and growth (Low, 2001). In doing so, they make decisions in the face of uncertainty and take risks when investing in initiatives with unknown outcomes. Whether a firm is large or small, domestic or international, competing in a high-tech or a low-tech industry, investment decisions are constantly made in order to attempt to build and sustain competitive advantage for the firm. The extant literature is rich with empirical and theoretical perspectives on the antecedents and consequences of firm entrepreneurship (Guth