ABSTRACT
Entrepreneurship is a creative activity. As such, it may not be possible to describe what entrepreneurs do. As William Baumol notes, “One can, indeed, describe what entrepreneurs used to do, but simply by virtue of having been reported in detail such an act is transformed into one that is no longer entrepreneurial.”1
Baumol’s remark offers a number of insights. Accepted at face value, it suggests that after entrepreneurial acts have been undertaken, others can, through analysis of those acts, convert them to managerial acts. Brilliant and original entrepreneurial insights then evolve to become a routine part of business operations. Probing deeper, this suggests that a component of economic progress is taking entrepreneurial insights and making them into a part of the routine activity of businesses.2 But where do these entrepreneurial insights come from in the first place? According to Kirzner, entrepreneurs uncover profit opportunities that previously went unnoticed,3 but this does not explain how those profit opportunities came to be observed, and why they were spotted by one person when they were overlooked by others. In fact, people can – and do – take actions to make themselves more entrepreneurial.
