Schumpeterian entrepreneurship as dual mediation between markets and between heterogeneous resources.

Abstract

The dualism of Joseph Schumpeter's personal and depersonalised concepts of entrepreneurship, together with his thesis about the obsolescence of the entrepreneur leading to the downfall of capitalism, have spawned contradictory interpretations and divergent research traditions. Richard Langlois proposes to resolve this dualism and the obsolescence thesis by defining entrepreneurship in terms of charisma and also applying it to corporate leaders. We disagree with Langlois's solution and instead define entrepreneurship as a dual mediation between markets and between heterogeneous resources. Our solution nevertheless shares similarities with Langlois's own entrepreneurial theory of the firm and builds on the post-Schumpeterian evolutionary economics literature.