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| This dissertation, which is an analysis of the entrepreneur at the micro level, supplements and underpins the understanding and use of the entrepreneur as an agent of social change in the analysis of economic change at the macro level. The aim of the thesis is firstly to seek out and identify businessmen of our time who claim to be innovative, and secondly to undertake a qualitative study and analysis of their qualities, actions and production and consumption functions in the context of Joseph A. Schumpeter’s theory of the entrepreneur and other relevant economic theories in a historical perspective. Joseph A. Schumpeter’s theory of the entrepreneur as set forth in The Theory of Economic Development, An Inquiry into Profit, Capital, Interest and the Business Cycle (English translation of 1934) is employed in this thesis as an analytical tool without reference to any earlier criticisms, and the presentation is constructed with this in mind. The theory is not presented in its entirety but as a brief summary which is unique in the sense that it is the typical features of the entrepreneur’s actions at the microeconomic level and the stress laid on the entrepreneurial criteria which are emphasised and crystallised. The most important characteristics and criteria of entrepreneurship according to Schumpeter’s theory is summed up, and the same criteria form the basis of the analysis of the businessmen included in the study. An array of classical and key economists and theories dealing with questions touching on the entrepreneur as an analytical concept of social economics in a time perspective, from R Cantillon to M Casson, are presented and discussed. Selected parts of each individual theory are analysed in relation to relevant individual criteria in Schumpeter’s theory, and also relatively between the theories, so that similarities and differences between Schumpeter’s theory and the other theories emerge as far as possible and appropriate. The analysis concludes with a tabulation of entrepreneurial characteristics and a list of criteria forming the essence of entrepreneurship - i.e. the criteria which distinguish Schumpeter’s theory from other theories. Three businessmen who claim to be creative are being investigated. Each case starts with an introduction in which the businessman concerned is presented along with an orientation as to the market in which he establishes his activities. Next follows a description of the establishment process and the form’s activities along with other special circumstances assosiated with the situation of the businessman in question. The informants have been interviewed using the same questions, worded to cover all the criteria in Schumpeter’s theory. The conversations have been taperecorded and the presentations follow the same layout in each of the three cases: innovations, entrepreneurial profit and the entrepreneur. The informants are differentiated based on criterions according to Schumpeter’s theory and general theory. The thesis has shown that entrepreneurs of the Schumpeterian type are unique and differ from other types of businessmen and entrepreneurs as they appear in schorlarly theory, in public opinion, and in reality |
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