Entrepreneurship at Case Western Reserve University

I have just spent the better part of a week attending a seminar at Case Western Reserve on Entrepreneurship, taught by Dr. Scott Shane. This is a seminar sponsored by the Kauffman foundation.

The materials and presentation were first rate. Over 40 articles and materials were reviewed over the five day period, so it was quite an intensive program.

It is clear from the seminar discussions that the academic field of entrepreneurship is a cross functional area where the empirical techniques used for evaluations draw heavily from economics, finance and the social sciences. The current academic efforts appear to be focused on analysis of the opportunity and decision-making process of the entrepreneur, with less focus on the character or personality of the individual entrepreneur.

It appears that many of my ideas on the influence of global information networks, and the hypothesis that an emphasis on sustainable enterprise can increase the opportunity for entrepreneurship, are on target. An emphasis on the triple bottom line increases the complexity and social pressures of markets. This increases the complexity of the opportunities, and therefore creates market spaces where the entrepreneur can create value through control of complexity. This will increase efficiency for customers and provide value for the entrepreneur.  This is in complete alignment with Schumpeterian thought on destruction and disruption creating new opportunities in capitalistic markets.

As far as defining entrepreneurship, I came away with the idea that entrepreneurship can occur anywhere within the innovation, capitalization, or firm founding aspects of the business process. I do believe however that entrepreneurship only occurs when someone risks something to push a new idea into the marketplace, be it an idea that benefits an internal market or the external market.

This leads to examination on the question of how leadership enters into the question of entrepreneurship. Does taking risks and evaluating risk leadership? Are there entrepreneurs that are not leaders? Are there leaders that are not entrepreneurs?

Greater knowledge leads to more questions.