Disorder and Public Concern Around Globalization

3Entrepreneurs at the Crossroads

The idealized representation of globalization as well as a certain business practice brought back the idea of the preeminence and effectiveness of an economic system dominated more by market relations than in the past. There is even an established myth of companies becoming mere collections of exchangeable assets valued by globalized and reputedly efficient financial markets. While, in the immediate postwar period, the Schumpeterian entrepreneur seemed to have been overshadowed by the manager and technostructure, they have now been overshadowed by financial markets.

Obviously, this is not at all the case. Market theory is most often summed up in the analysis of the functioning of price mechanism in different market structures bringing together companies that have been reduced to technical production functions linking factors and products traded on the markets. Yet, now less than ever can companies be considered as small islands of planned coordination in the sea of market relations. They are instead complex organizational arrangements between many stakeholders, whose implementation is the entrepreneur’s real function.

Entrepreneurs play an essential role in the growth process. They hold this function of seeking new opportunities that make them introduce new products, new production methods, enter new markets and create new forms of industrial organization. But they can also exercise their skills without actually contributing to the productive ...