Understanding the Entrepreneur: An Institutionalist Perspective

This book seeks to formulate a coherent and consistent approach to the study of the entrepreneur. In doing so, it focuses upon two research issues that have been central in entrepreneurship theory-building: the exploration of the interaction between the entrepreneurial economic agent and context, and deciphering the decision-making process of entrepreneurs that possess finite calculative abilities and operate in settings characterized by ambiguity and fundamental uncertainty. This text provides a critical review of the literature on entrepreneurship, emanating from economics and other social sciences, which traces the evolution of theoretical constructs in entrepreneurial studies from the early contributions of Cantillon and Say to the early 21st century. The examination of the institutionalist approach formulated in the book concentrates upon the identification of some general principles that can be combined with data regarding specific historical contexts.