Entrepreneurship as Experimentation

Entrepreneurship as Experimentation

Entrepreneurship research is on the rise but many questions about its fundamental nature still exist. We argue that entrepreneurship is about experimentation: the probabilities of success are low, extremely skewed and unknowable until an investment is made. At a macro level experimentation by new firms underlies the Schumpeterian notion of creative destruction. However, at a micro level investm...

Experimentation and the Returns to Entrepreneurship

Previous studies have argued that entrepreneurs earn less and bear more risk than salaried workers with otherwise similar characteristics. In a simple model of entrepreneurship, I show that estimates of mean and variance of returns to entrepreneurship used by these previous studies are biased, as they fail to account for the option value of experimenting with new ideas. Using longitudinal data,...

Entrepreneurship as Expectations Management

Entrepreneurial profits flow from differences in expectations between buyers and sellers regarding the future value of resources. The current paper investigates whether differences in expectations can be manipulated, molded, or manufactured by an entrepreneur to produce greater profits. It is concluded that a range of techniques are available to manage expectations and that the use of these tec...

Geoengineering as Collective Experimentation

Geoengineering is defined as the 'deliberate and large-scale intervention in the Earth's climatic system with the aim of reducing global warming'. The technological proposals for doing this are highly speculative. Research is at an early stage, but there is a strong consensus that technologies would, if realisable, have profound and surprising ramifications. Geoengineering would seem to be an a...

Entrepreneurship as organizing - A literature study of entrepreneurship