Entrepreneurship and society

6/1/2012

Adrián Leguina

This exposition will be conducted like an inclusive discussion about the impact of entrepreneurship on today’s society. A relevant aspect of this impact is the capitalist vision of small business on national economies, lead by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) research in more than 80 countries. A key character is Austrian economist Joseph Shumpeter (1993-1950) who defined entrepreneur as a perseverant and ambitious person who creates markets to inventions of genius. His motivation is create an economic empire (a name, brand). A key process to this is called creative destruction, through which new products destroy old business and traditional models. This is not possible without expansion of banks and financial sector, reinforcing the importance of economic cycles necessaries to growth.

However, the capitalist definition of entrepreneurship proposed by Schumpeter, reproduced on GEM project and public policies, also reproduces inequality, allowing to survive only to advantageous  social groups, with tools and backup to create and survive to economic cycles, in other words: true Schumpeterian entrepreneurs. Additionally, empirical research invisibilizes real consequences of entrepreneurship at lower and middle social groups, and moreover leads to inconsistent findings during current economic and social crises.

Illustrated using past research in Chile, worldwide data and personal experience it is expected to generate a broad discussion about how this particular vision can be related to current social, political, and economical crisis might affect us. The structure of the exposition is as follow. First, a brief review of fundamental concepts of entrepreneurship and GEM project. Second, to describe worldwide situation related to entrepreneurship relevant numbers will be show. Third, conduct the discussion to a micro perspective, showing evidence from Chile and Latin America. It is expected the participation of the audience during the entire presentation.