Creative Management of Complex Systems

4Entrepreneurship, Market Creation and Imagination

Management science has naturally developed numerous reflections on the way in which we create and manage an enterprise in the dynamic sense of the word, i.e. undertaking something new. We speak of entrepreneurship for anything concerning the foundation and growth of an enterprise, with results in terms of value creation and therefore wealth and employment. This can also apply to non-profit organizations, in which case we speak of social entrepreneurship. It is important to emphasize that the entrepreneurial attitude also manifests itself within organizations. We then speak of intrapreneurship, which partially comprises the field of project management.

The economic sciences have dealt with the question of entrepreneurship from a number of angles: in terms of theory, as the foundation of innovation, but also through the range of macroeconomic consequences from the phenomenon and to clarify innovation and economic development policies. If entrepreneurship has taken on so much importance today, it is because innovation is systematically placed within economic and social evolution. It is worth mentioning that the notion of entrepreneurship owes a great deal to the founder of innovation economics, Joseph Schumpeter (Schumpeter 1934, 1942).

According to Schumpeter’s definition, the entrepreneur is not the one who manages an enterprise, but the one who innovates in one way or another, particularly through enterprise creation. This ...