Entrepreneurship, long neglected by economists and management scholars, has made a dramatic comeback in the last two decades, not only among academic economists and management scholars, but also among policymakers, educators and practitioners. Likewise, the economic theory of the firm, building on Ronald Coase's (1937) seminal analysis, has become an increasingly important field in economics and management. Despite this resurgence, there is still little connection between the entrepreneurship literature and the literature on the firm, both in academia and in management practice. This book fills this gap by proposing and developing an entrepreneurial theory of the firm that focuses on the connections between entrepreneurship and management. Drawing on insights from Austrian economics, it describes entrepreneurship as judgmental decision made under uncertainty, showing how judgment is the driving force of the market economy and the key to understanding firm performance and organization.
Advance praise: 'It is about time entrepreneurship came into its own within economics, moving out of the mystical shadows of creative destruction and the magical imagination of the attentive entrepreneur into the more mundane and tractable reality unfolding in our empirical work. The actual content of entrepreneurial judgment has far reaching implications not only for theories of the firm, but more generally for economic organization. In this book, Foss and Klein have turned the corner on research (or lack thereof) into this important topic.' Saras Sarasvathy, Isadore Horween Research Associate Professor, The Darden School, University of Virginia Advance praise: 'This is a path breaking book. Foss and Klein connect the growing entrepreneurship literature with the rich theories of the organization. It offers important rich and original insights that will undoubtedly revise long held views of entrepreneurship in organizations and how managers make judgments about entrepreneurial initiatives. Well written and grounded in solid research, the book will surely inspire and enrich future scholarship.' Shaker A. Zahra, Department Chair, Robert E. Buuck Chair, and Professor of Strategic and Organization, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota
| List of figures | |
| Preface | |
| Acknowledgements | |
| The need for an entrepreneurial theory of the firm | |
| What is entrepreneurship? | |
| Entrepreneurship: from opportunity discovery to judgment | |
| What is judgment? | |
| From shmoo to heterogeneous capital | |
| Entrepreneurship and the economic theory of the firm | |
| Entrepreneurship and the nature and boundaries of the firm | |
| Internal organization: original and derived judgment | |
| Concluding discussion | |
| References | |
| Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved. |
ISBN: 9780521874427
ISBN-10: 0521874424
Audience:
Tertiary; University or College
Format:
Hardcover
Language:
English
Number Of Pages: 312
Published: 1st March 2012
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Dimensions (cm): 22.8 x 15.2
x 1.8
Weight (kg): 0.62