TITLE:
On Entrepreneurship, Intentionality and Economic Policymaking
AUTHORS:
Félix-Fernando Munoz, María-Isabel ENCINAR, Carolina CANIBANO
KEYWORDS:
Entrepreneurship, Intentionality, Evolutionary Economic Policymaking
JOURNAL NAME:
iBusiness,
Vol.1 No.2,
December
18,
2009
ABSTRACT: Within evolutionary economics, entrepreneurship is seen as the main force of economic change, as the agency of self-transformation within restless capitalist economic systems. Therefore, a truly evolutionary perspective on economic policy-making must consider the significance and scope of entrepreneurship. On the basis of such a perspective, it might be possible to assess future outcomes of economic evolution under different policy measures related with, for instance, stimulating entrepreneurship as a policy that would provide the seeds for recovery from a slump in an economy. In this short note, our main claim is that the very nature of entrepreneurship implies the recognition of the role played by entrepreneurs’ intentions, their tendency towards transforming goals and agents’ spaces of action. Recognition is possible due to a more systematic analytical integration of these elements into a theory of entrepreneurship based on a ‘production of action’ conception (vs. the standard framework based on a ‘technology of choice’). This analytical vision sheds light on how economic policymaking should be implemented to stimulate entrepreneurship.