The Impossibility of Entrepreneurship Under the Neoclassical Framework: Open vs. Closed-Ended Processes

Gabriel Giménez Roche

Journal of Economic Issues, 2016, vol. 50, issue 3, 695-715

Abstract: In spite of its use to explain market processes, neoclassical economics still has not integrated entrepreneurship into its analyses. This explanatory gap is the consequence of the analytical closed-endedness of the “market” processes described by the neoclassical framework, where social interactions do not result in new unpredictable information. However, entrepreneurship as profit-seeking under uncertainty is an open-ended process characterized by a creatively reflexive and emergent interactive behavior in society. This open-endedness involves the generation of novel, complex, and extensive future information that is not what anyone intended it to be. Neoclassical economics, with its predetermined assumptions on economic behavior, cannot really account for the fundamental uncertainty of open-ended processes because it cannot explain reflexivity or emergence. Therefore, it cannot explain entrepreneurship as either an innovatively cohesive or disruptive behavior that converges toward future market situations.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00213624.2016.1210378 (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:mes:jeciss:v:50:y:2016:i:3:p:695-715

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/MJEI20

DOI: 10.1080/00213624.2016.1210378

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Economic Issues from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst (chris.longhurst@tandf.co.uk).