ABSTRACT
A recent Business Week poll asserts that "entrepreneurs" are "out" and "dealmakers" are "in" ( Business Week 1989). If the business press is to be believed, the innovative, altruistic, Economic Developer and Changemaster has been replaced by an expedient, self-interested Speculator and Snake Oil Salesman. This contradiction in terms appears frequently in the entrepreneurship literature, a love-hate relationship best summarized by Schumpeter's oft-quoted description of the entrepreneur as the harbinger of "creative destruction" (Schumpeter 1950). This simple example from the popular press captures the dual image of the entrepreneur in social theory—as Economic Savior and Social Deviant (Parsons and Smelser 1956; Casson 1982; Brenner 1987).
