Capitalist Entrepreneurship: Making Profit through the Unmaking of Economic Orders

Knudsen Thorbjørn and Swedberg Richard
Additional contact information
Knudsen Thorbjørn: University of Southern Denmark
Swedberg Richard: Cornell University

Capitalism and Society, 2009, vol. 4, issue 2, 28

Abstract: This is a theoretical paper in which we attempt to present an economic and sociological theory of entrepreneurship. We start from Schumpeter's idea in Theory of Economic Development that the economy can be conceptualized as a combination and innovations as new combinations. Schumpeter also spoke of resistance to entrepreneurship. By linking the ideas of combination and resistance, we are in a position to suggest a theory of capitalist entrepreneurship. An existing combination, we propose, can be understood as a social formation with its own cohesion and resistance - what may be called an economic order. Actors know how to act; and profit is low and even in these orders. Entrepreneurship, in contrast, breaks them up by creating new ways of doing things and, in doing so, produces entrepreneurial profit. This profit inspires imitators until a new order for how to do things has been established; and profit has become low and even once more. Entrepreneurship is defined as the act of creating a new combination that ends one economic order and clears the way for a new one. The implications of this approach for a number of topics related to entrepreneurship are also discussed.

Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.2202/1932-0213.1057 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:capsoc:v:4:y:2009:i:2:n:3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/cas/html

DOI: 10.2202/1932-0213.1057

Access Statistics for this article

Capitalism and Society is currently edited by Edmund Phelps and Amar Bhidé

More articles in Capitalism and Society from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().