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Conceptualising entrepreneurship as economic 'explanation' and the consequent loss of 'understanding'

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  • Alistair R. Anderson

Abstract

This paper examines how entrepreneurship has become conceptualised as an economic phenomenon. We explain how the outcomes, the admirable results of entrepreneurship, have led to this position. An understandable concern for the economic benefits from enterprise, and the appeal of measurability, has led to a focus on explaining entrepreneurship. This has been matched by a relative neglect of examining the processes that would help us to understand entrepreneurship. Explanations of entrepreneurship best fit a systems view, where entrepreneurship is a mechanism for adjustment to change, as for example in Kirznerian alertness. But such a view cannot take full account of how entrepreneurship produces change. In homogenising entrepreneurship's idiosyncratic nature, we miss the nuanced understanding of how the entrepreneurial self fits into context to create, as well as employ, change. The instrumentality of explanation obscures the subjectivity of entrepreneurial practices.

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  • Alistair R. Anderson, 2015. "Conceptualising entrepreneurship as economic 'explanation' and the consequent loss of 'understanding'," International Journal of Business and Globalisation, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 14(2), pages 145-157.
    • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijbglo:v:14:y:2015:i:2:p:145-157
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    1. Alistair R. Anderson & Johan Gaddefors, 2016. "Entrepreneurship as a community phenomenon; reconnecting meanings and place," International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 28(4), pages 504-518.
    2. Rupert Hasenzagl & Isabella Hatak & Hermann Frank, 2018. "Problematizing socioemotional wealth in family firms: a systems-theoretical reframing," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(1-2), pages 199-223, January.

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