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Summary
The topic of entrepreneurship currently experiences a revived interest as is shown by the research agenda of today's empirical researchers. There are few issues in economics which are backed up by such a rich historical knowledge base as is the case with entrepreneurship. This paper aims to give an overview of some important classic contributions relating to today's and tomorrow's empirical research subjects. The overview consists of answers to six research questions by six historical contributors to entrepreneurship research. Together, these questions give some insight into the determinants of successful entrepreneurship. The classic contributors considered are Cantillon, Say, Marshall, Schumpeter, Knight, and Kirzner. Their views are compared to each other as well as to some recent results of empirical research into the determinants of successful entrepreneurship.
Key words: entrepreneurship, self-employment, history of economic thought
1 INTRODUCTION
In order to solve the many problems of today both in the private and the public sectors, entrepreneurial activity on a large scale, based on a sensitive and innovative attitude, guided by a broad concept of welfare, is needed even more than before ~Heertje ~1982!, p. 91!.
Given the importance of entrepreneurship in economic practice today, the question readily arises: What is its role in economic theory and how did it develop? In order to answer this question, we shall review some classic contributions to the theory of entrepreneurship, which really started to develop halfway through the eighteenth century.1
Historically, philosophers of science did not hold entrepreneurs in high esteem. Entrepreneurs were not at all regarded as enhancing society's well-being. Making profit, the economic definition of the pecuniary return ~gain! to entrepreneurship, was perceived as robbery ever since Aristotle had introduced the persistent idea of economic activity as a 'Zero-sum game,' i.e. one man's gain is another man's loss.
Today however, most economists and other practitioners of behavioral sciences as well as politicians will readily admit the importance of the entrepreneur's role in society. Entrepreneurs are held responsible for economic development, by introducing and implementing innovative ideas. These ideas include product innovation, process innovation, market innovation, and organizational innovations. The ~successful! implementation, initiated by entrepreneurs, of these new ideas gives rise to the satisfaction of ~new! consumer wants and to the creation of firms. The created firms...