Toward a theory of public sector entrepreneurship

Gordon E. Shockley, Roger R. Stough, Kingsley E. Haynes and Peter M. Frank

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, 2006, vol. 6, issue 3, 205-223

Abstract: Existing theories of public sector entrepreneurship lack a sense of entrepreneurial discovery ubiquitous in human action. Instead, existing theories emphasise rational calculation in a public sector setting. Existing theories of public sector entrepreneurship, therefore, are inadequate to account for the observed entrepreneurial behaviour in political and bureaucratic settings. The purpose of this paper is to redress the limited theories of public sector entrepreneurship by integrating Kirznerian and Schumpeterian theories of entrepreneurship with Buchanan and Tullock's constitutional political economy to move toward a theory of public sector entrepreneurship. The following analytic definition is offered: public sector entrepreneurship occurs whenever a political or governmental actor is alert to, and acts on, potential political profit opportunities, thus equilibrating the policy subsystem in which the actor is embedded and moving it toward a new equilibrium.

Keywords: public sector entrepreneurship; Israel Kirzner; Joseph Schumpeter; public administration; public policy; entrepreneurial behaviour; constitutional political economy. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=9875 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:ids:ijeima:v:6:y:2006:i:3:p:205-223

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().