The Entrepreneur

4Contemporary Theories of the Entrepreneur

4.1. From entrepreneur to industrial economy

Between 1945 and 1975, the theory of the entrepreneur was sidelined in favor of the theory of managerial capitalism [GAL 68, CHA 77], which stems from Schumpeter’s analysis in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942). The entrepreneur is depicted as an endangered, retrograde figure, and the future of capitalism lies in technostructure. Only Edith Penrose [PEN 59] developed a more subtle analysis, the “theory of interstices”, according to which small businesses creep into markets that have been abandoned by big businesses. As in Marshall’s analysis, the entrepreneur on the one hand and the manager and shareholder on the other belong to the same reality: capitalism. It is interesting to highlight this dichotomy in Marshall’s theory, because it resulted in industrial economics on the one hand and the economics of the entrepreneur on the other. Industrial economics developed from the 1930s in the USA, with the Harvard School [BAI 54, BAI 56, BAI 59, MAS 39, MAS 59], through the theory of economies of scale, then the SCP (Structure-Conduct-Performance) model, but its true institutionalization dates from the 1950s. Empirical studies of industrial economics from this period try to explain the profit rates of businesses using two essential variables of market structure: industrial concentration and barriers to entry. Mason fundamentally criticizes macroeconomics. His approach is hybrid, half theoretical ...