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Entrepreneurship

💼 Business By CampusDown Wiki Editorial Team Last updated
Quick answer: entrepreneurship is the attitude and activity of spotting opportunities others miss and creating value through new combinations, that is, innovation. Schumpeter stressed innovation as 'creative destruction' replacing the old, while Kirzner stressed alertness to market disequilibrium.
Contents
  1. 1. Concept
  2. 2. Schumpeter: innovation and creative destruction
  3. 3. Kirzner: entrepreneurial alertness
  4. 4. Drucker: systematic innovation
  5. 5. The opportunity view and entrepreneurial orientation
  6. 6. Related concepts
  7. 7. References

Concept

Entrepreneurship is the activity of identifying opportunities under uncertainty and combining resources in new ways to create products, services and organizations. It covers not only founding firms but also building new businesses inside existing organizations.

Schumpeter: innovation and creative destruction

In The Theory of Economic Development, Schumpeter defined the entrepreneur as the person who carries out 'new combinations': (1) a new good, (2) a new method of production, (3) a new market, (4) a new source of raw materials or supplies, and (5) a new organization of an industry. He later called the process by which such innovations displace established industries 'creative destruction'.

Kirzner: entrepreneurial alertness

Kirzner, of the Austrian school, saw the entrepreneur as someone 'alert' to price differences and opportunities that already exist but have gone unnoticed. Where Schumpeter's entrepreneur disrupts equilibrium, Kirzner's moves the market toward it.

Drucker: systematic innovation

In Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Drucker treated entrepreneurship as a learnable practice rather than a personality trait. He listed seven sources of innovative opportunity: the unexpected, incongruities, process need, changes in industry or market structure, demographics, changes in perception, and new knowledge.

The opportunity view and entrepreneurial orientation

  • Opportunity view: Shane and Venkataraman (2000) defined the field as the study of how, by whom and with what effects opportunities are discovered, evaluated and exploited.
  • Entrepreneurial orientation: a firm-level construct measuring innovativeness, risk-taking and proactiveness.
  • Corporate entrepreneurship: creating new businesses inside established firms, such as internal ventures and spin-offs.
  • Social entrepreneurship: innovation aimed at solving social problems.

A new venture's environment can be assessed with Porter's five forces and SWOT analysis, and an uncertain future can be prepared for with scenario planning. The relationship between founders and investors is also explained by agency theory.

References

  1. Schumpeter, J. A. (1934). The Theory of Economic Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  2. Kirzner, I. M. (1973). Competition and Entrepreneurship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  3. Drucker, P. F. (1985). Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practice and Principles. New York: Harper & Row.
  4. Shane, S., & Venkataraman, S. (2000). The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research. Academy of Management Review, 25(1), 217–226.

Reports and materials that use this theory (Korean)

There are no materials dedicated to this theory yet, but you can search related reports in the CampusDown library (Korean).

Find more reports · Search '기업가정신' on CampusDown →
Porter's Five ForcesPorter's five forces: rivalry among existing competitors, threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes, bargaining power of buyers and suppliers, roots in industrial organization economics, how to apply it, complements, and limits.💼 BusinessSWOT AnalysisSWOT analysis explained: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, the TOWS matrix, links with Porter's Five Forces and PEST, origins, criticisms, and how to write a SWOT report.💼 BusinessAgency Theory (Corporate Governance)Agency theory explained: Berle and Means on the separation of ownership and control, Jensen and Meckling's agency costs (monitoring, bonding, residual loss), information asymmetry and moral hazard, governance mechanisms, and limits.💼 BusinessScenario PlanningScenario planning explained: a strategy method that builds several plausible futures instead of one forecast, Shell's oil-crisis story, driving forces and critical uncertainties, the 2x2 matrix, the main steps, and limitations.💼 Business

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This article was last updated on October 15, 2026. It is based on widely recognized original works and textbooks; when citing it in a paper, please check the original sources listed in the references.