ABSTRACT

Hypotheses about the principal determinants of entrepreneurship are strongly conditioned by the particular set of disciplinary spectacles through which one looks. By and large, economists have tended to concentrate on the nature of the entrepreneurial function, neglecting consideration of the personal factors that might characterise the entrepreneurial type in a particular setting and instead emphasising the external causes of entrepreneurial activity. For example, many economists would argue that entrepreneurial behaviour is caused by external market forces, such as market ‘imperfections’, that create an opportunity for entrepreneurs to earn supernormal profits. Consequently, economic models generally do not try to explain why, when and how some people, but not others, are able to discover or create these opportunities. The sources of individual differences in alertness to economic opportunities are left largely unexplained in economic models of entrepreneurship.