Questioning the Entrepreneurial State
Description
The 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic have made the authorities to increasingly turn inward and use ethnocentrism, protectionism, and top-down approaches to guide policy on trade, competition, and industrial development. The continuing aftereffects of such policies range from the rise and seeming success of authoritarian states, rise of populist and protectionist trends, and evolving academic agendas inspiring the reemergence of top-down industrial policies across the world.
This open access edited volume contains contributions from over 30 scholars with expertise in economics, innovation, management, and economic history. The chapters offer unique theoretical and empirical contributions discussing topics such as how industrial policies affect risk, incentives, and information for investments. They also address the policy perspectives on new technologies such as AI and its implications for market entry, the role for independent entrepreneurship in increasingly regulated markets, and whether governments should focus on market interventions or institutional capacity-building.Questioning the Entrepreneurial State initiates a much sought-after debate on the notion of an Entrepreneurial State. It discusses the dangers of top-down approaches to industrial policy, examines lessons from such approaches for future policy design, and calls attention to the progress of open and contestable markets in a sound economy and society.
"Creative destruction, innovation and entrepreneurship are at the core of economic growth. The government has a clear role, to provide the basic fabric of a dynamic society, but industrial policy and state-owned companies are the boulevard of broken dreams and unrealized visions. This important message is convincingly stated in Questioning the Entrepreneurial State ."Anders Borg, former Minister of Finance, Sweden
"Misreading the dynamism of American entrepreneurship, European intellectuals and policy makers have embraced a dangerous fantasy: catching up requires constructing an entrepreneurial state. This book provides a vital antidote: The entrepreneur comes first: The state may support. It cannot lead."
Amar Bhidé, Thomas Schmidheiny Professor of International Business, Tufts University
"This important new book subjects the emergence of the entrepreneurial state, which reflects a shift in the locus of entrepreneurship from the individual to the public sector, to the scrutiny of rigorous analysis. The resulting concerns, flaws and biases inherent in the entrepreneurial state exposed are both alarming and sobering. The skill and scholarly craftsmanship brought to bear in this crucial analysis is evident throughout the book, along with the even, but ultimately consequential thinking of the authors. A must read for researchers and thought leaders in business and policy."
David Audtretsch, Distinguished Professor, Ameritech Chair of Economic Development, Indiana UniversityReviews / Votes
"Austrian Economics will find the volume's analysis very congenial to the school's ideas. While the socialist calculation debate may be in the past, this volume shows that the arguments marshalled by the Austrian school remain relevant to current economic issues. The larger value of the book to Austrian school scholars is that it analyzes a policy-relevant issue that warrants further research." (Randall G. Holcombe, The Review of Austrian Economics, Vol. 37 (4), 2024)
"All three books provide important guideposts for organizing collective effort to develop the kinds of technologies needed to address the most important global problems of the twenty-first century. The academic credentials and scholarly perspectives of the contributors infuse Wennberg and Sandstro¨m's edited volume with an analytical tone and comparative institutional lens that are very welcome in the conversation regarding how public policymakers should identify opportunities for encouraging innovation." (Anita M. McGahan, Administrative Science Quarterly, October 31, 2023)
"The book is written for both academics and policymakers, and it is written clearly without an assumption that readers possess a strong foundation of economic training. . Questioning the Entrepreneurial State is an excellent edited volume comprising thought provoking concerns about the viability of an entrepreneurial state. . After reading this edited volume, readers will learn not just the entrepreneurial state and criticisms, but will learn about a variety of topics on institutions, ecosystems, sustainability, and politics related to entrepreneurship and innovation." (Christopher John Boudreaux, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Vol. 32, 2022)
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Persons
Karl Wennberg holds the Barbara Bergström Chair of Educational Leadership and Quality and is a research fellow at the House of Innovation, both at the Stockholm School of Economics (Sweden). He is one of the leading scholars on entrepreneurship in Europe, with over 60 published scholarly articles in high-ranking journals and 10 books. His research is on entrepreneurship, innovation policy, and organization theory, where public policy implication of theoretical and empirical research has been a common thread in his research.
Christian Sandström is Senior Associate Professor of Digital Business at Jönköping International Business School (Sweden) and the Ratio Institute (Sweden). His research concerns innovation policy and the interplay between technological and institutional change.
Content
Part I: Introductory Chapter.- Introduction.- Part II: The Entrepreneurial State: Theoretical Perspectives.- The Entrepreneurial State and the Platform Economy.- An Effectual Analysis of Markets and States.- The Entrepreneurial State: An Ownership Competence Perspective.- Innovation Without Entrepreneurship: The Pipe Dream of Mission-Oriented Innovation Policy.- Part III: The Entrepreneurial State, Entrepreneurial Universities, and Startups.- Building Local Innovation Support Systems: Theory and Practice.- Reducing Higher Education Bureaucracy and Reclaiming the Entrepreneurial University.- Cultural Ideals in the Entrepreneurship Industry.- Evaluating Evaluations of Innovation Policy: Exploring Reliability, Methods, and Conflicts of Interest.- Do Targeted R&D Grants toward SMEs Increase Employment and Demand for High Human Capital Workers?.- Part IV: The Entrepreneurial State and Sustainability Transitions.- Third-Generation Innovation Policy: System Transformation or Reinforcing Business as Usual?.- Less from More: China Built Wind Power, but Gained Little Electricity.- The Failures of the Entrepreneurial State: Subsidies to Renewable Energies in Europe.- Directionality in Innovation Policy and the Ongoing Failure of Green Deals: Evidence from Biogas, Bio-ethanol, and Fossil-Free Steel.- Part V: From the Entrepreneurial State Towards Evidence-Based Innovation Policy.- Policy Instruments for High-Growth Enterprises.- Public-Steering and Private-Performing Sectors: Success and Failures in the Swedish Finance, Telecoms, and City Planning Sectors.- The Digital Platform Economy and the Entrepreneurial State: A European Dilemma.- Collaborative Innovation Blocs and Mission-Oriented Innovation Policy: An Ecosystem Perspective.