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Keywords Entrepreneurialism, Capital, Human capital, Knowledge management, Dysfunction
Abstract This paper attempts to synthesise the theoretical research on entrepreneurship and social capital undertaken in previous studies, and presents a multi-dimensional view of entrepreneurship. In examining overviews of past single perspective entrepreneurship research, this study shows that the primary role of entrepreneurs in organisation emergence is to acquire knowledge and create social capital properly. This process is necessarily accompanied by creation of knowledge communities to establish the domain consensus of new organisations among various stakeholders paying particular attention to the fragility and dysfunctional side of entrepreneurship and social capital. The paper concludes with a hypothesis and suggestions towards a future research agenda. It is hoped that, as a result of this theoretical development, this paper will help to focus greater attention on the concept of entrepreneurship in studies of management development.
1. Introduction
This paper explores theoretically from diverse viewpoints the role of the entrepreneur during organisation emergence and the development process. With globalisation accelerating, the competitive relationships between individuals, organisations, regions, and nations are becoming increasingly complex and interlocked, regardless of the size or development levels of the firms; industrial structures are also rapidly changing. Studies of entrepreneurship and new organisations confront the researcher with the difficult problem of identifying the essential properties in this multi-layered, dynamic process.
Under such globally and locally competitive circumstances, enablers to enhance the vitality of entrepreneurs have been discussed frequently in terms of relationships with the supporting foundations of the local economy and industrial clusters. This paper examines the theoretical roles and implications of "entrepreneurship," which is a key concept for understanding future socio-economic changes, and attempts to move away from the single dimension view to a multi-dimension view, while focusing on organisation emergence.
In the creation of a new organisation, the vision of the founder must be reflected in a specific strategic domain, which, however, cannot be established through one person's single, key decision making. Instead this is created by the elaborate editing of knowledge through complex chain reactions. In this process, not only the traditional industry-university linkages, but also multi-dimensional partnerships with investors and customers are thought to play a vital role; however, the conditions and circumstances of this process have not been discussed much, either...