лекция 1 (дополненная английская версия)

Questions

•Is more entrepreneurship always desirable?

•Under what circumstance can there be

‘insufficient entrepreneurs’

Implications of Baumol’s typology

•What is important is the ‘rules of the game’ (e.g. tax incentives, ease of setting up a business) rather than supply of entrepreneurs

•The entrepreneurs are always with us: it is just

that people shift between productive, unproductive or destructive entrepreneurship depending on the nature of incentives they face

Defining the entrepreneur

•No agreed definition of the entrepreneur

•Casson (1982) defines an entrepreneur as ‘someone who specialises in making judgemental decisions about the co-ordination of scarce resources’ (p. 23).

•Fundamental to the entrepreneur is the presence of uncertainty: if everything is known there is no need for the entrepreneur

•Theorists generally agree that arbitrage (differences in prices) is important:

–Temporal arbitrage (differences in prices between two time periods)

–Spatial arbitrage (differences in prices between two locations)

Economist’s approach

•Uncertainty

•Adopt a choice framework – people make choices and work within a ‘utility’ framework

•Focus on outcomes of economic activity

•No common approach adopted by economists:

–Risk bearers?

–Special people?

–Risk ‘lovers’?

–Innovators?

–Market adjusters?

Four common economic themes

1.The individual exercises a choice between becoming an entrepreneur or an employee and is able to switch between them.

2.The choice to switch between the two depends on the utility of each state.

3.The recognition that the income from being an entrepreneur is more risky than that from being an employee.

4.The choice is also influenced by differences between individuals in terms of their entrepreneurial talent and attitudes to risk.

Organisational theorist’s approach

•Shared concern with uncertainty and outcomes

•Tend to be relatively more interested in entrepreneurial processes (e.g. entrepreneurial decision making)

•No common approach adopted by organisational theorists (e.g. focus on different units of analysis (e.g. individual, business)) and different stages of entrepreneurial activity (e.g. start up,

growth)

•Shane and Venkataraman (2002) suggest it should be about:

–Why, when and how opportunities for the creation of goods and service come into existence

–Why, when and how some people and not others discover and exploit these opportunities

–Why, when and how different modes of action are used to exploit entrepreneurial opportunities

Shane and Venkataraman’s (2002)

assumptions

1.Entrepreneurial opportunities exist – but are not known to everyone

2.People have different perceptions on the value

(financial or non-financial) of an opportunity

3.Some people will choose to pursue these opportunities

4.Acting on these opportunities will result in differing outcomes, both profitable and unprofitable

Which is a better explanation of entrepreneurship – the economic or organisational approach?

What it takes to be an entrepreneur, basing on a particular entrepreneur that you think of?

Factors:

-Industrial sectors

-Business development stages -Innovation

-Attitudes towards risk

Conclusions

•Explored the concepts of risk and uncertainty in relation to small businesses

•Examined three dimensions of uncertainty: market, customer and aspirational uncertainty

•Identified key differences between large and small businesses