© 1996 Oxford University Press
research-article |
Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Schumpeter Revisited
MERIT, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Limburg PO Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands
Abstract
In a large part of the literature on Scbumpeter one finds that attention is paid to either his early contributions, with reference to the role of the entrepreneur as the personification of innovation, or to his later contributions, stressing the role of large companies as main drivers of innovation. This paper complements some recent contributions to the assessment of the influence of Schumpeter on economics and social sciences in general. It demonstrates that a careful reading of his writings reveals that there is no simple dichotomy between the old and the young. Entrepreneurial activities play an active role in understanding the dynamics of innovation throughout Schumpeter's theory.