The firm is a creative institution: the driving force of entrepreneurship

Authors

  • Javier Aranzadi del Cerro Associated Professor of Economics, Universidad Autónoma, Madrid.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52195/pm.v10i2.189

Abstract

In this article, I approach the role of the firm as a social institution. I will do this by studying the firm from the personal interrelations that make it a social process. In this perspective, the social responsibility of the firm consists of enhancing the entrepreneurship of its employees. Instead of asking about individual creativity in isolation we should consider how to stimulate creativity in personal action, in entrepreneurial culture and in existing firms. In this view there is not only more welfare as we have more things but also as we have more possibilities for action. And I can venture a criterion of social coordination: Coordination improves if the process of creating culturally transmitted personal possibilities for action in firms is extended. The driving force of this social process is entrepreneurship understood as the deployment of the person’s creative capacity in the reality around her.

Key words: Firm, Social Institution Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Ethics, Social coordination.

JEL Classification: B53; L20; L26; M14.

Resumen: Este artículo presenta el papel de la empresa como institución social. En esta perspectiva, la responsabilidad social de la empresa consiste en fomentar, ampliar y desarrollar la empresarialidad de sus empleados. En lugar de hablar de la creatividad del genio individual deberíamos estudiar cómo estimular la creatividad de las personas dentro de las empresas. De esta manera el bienestar económico no se reduce a la posesión material, sino que el incremento de la riqueza económica se centra en el incremento de posibilidades de acción de las personas. Así, podremos avanzar un criterio de coordinación social. Dicha coordinación mejora si las posibilidades de acción personales ejecutadas en las empresas se amplían. El motor de este proceso social es la empresarialidad entendida como el desarrollo de la ca - pacidad creativa de las personas en el contexto social y cultural en el que viven.

Palabras clave: Empresa, Institución Social, Creatividad, Empresarialidad, Ética, Coordinación Social.

Clasificación JEL: B53; L20; L26; M14.

References

AGLE, B., DONALDSON, T., FREEMAN, E., JENSEN, M., MITCHELL, R. & WOOD, D. (2008): «Dialogue: Towards Superior Stakeholder Theory», Business Ethics Quarterly, 18 (2): 153-190.

ARANZADI, J. (2006): Liberalism against Liberalism, Routledge, London.

—(2011): «The Possibilities of the Acting Person within an Ins-titutional Framework: Goods, Norms and Virtues», Journal of Business Ethics, 99(1): 87-100.

ARISTOTLE (1969): Nicomachean Ethics, translated by D. Ross, Ox-ford University Press, Oxford.

BAUMOL, W. (1968): «Entrepreurship in Economic Theory», American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, 58: 64-71.

—(1993): «Formal Entrepreneurship theory in Economics. Existence and Bounds», Journal of Business Venturing, 8: 197-210.

—(1996): Entrepreneurship, Management, and the Structure of Payoffs, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

BECKER, G. and MURPHY, K.M. (2000): Social Economics, Harvard University Press, Massachussets.

BRENKERT, G. (2009): «Innovation, Rule Breaking and the Ethics of Entrepreneurship», Journal of Business Venturing, 29: 448-464.

CASSON, M. (1982): The Entrepreneur, Barnes & Noble Books, To-towa, NJ.

CSIKSZENTMIHALYI, M. (1996): Creativity. Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, HarperCollins Publishers, New York.

DEW, N., VELAMURI, S.R. & VENKATARANAM, S. (2004): «Dispersed Knowledge and an Entrepreneurial Theory of the Firm», Journal of Business Venturing, 19: 659-679.

DOBSON, J. (2009): «Alasdair Macintyre’s Aristotelian Business Ethics: A Critique», Journal of Business Ethics, 86: 43-50.

DRUCKER, P. (1998): El gran poder de las pequeñas ideas, Editorial Sud-americana, Buenos Aires.

ETZIONE, A. (1987): «Entrepreneurship, Adaptation and Legitima-tion», Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 8: 175-189.

FREEMAN, E. (2000): «Business Ethics at the Millennium», Business Ethics Quarterly, 10(1): 169-180.

FRIEDMAN, M. (1970): «The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits», New York Times Magazine, 13th Sep-tember.

GHOSHAL, S. (2005): «Bad Management Theories are Destroying Good Management Practices», Academy of Management Lear-ning & Education 4(1): 75-91.

GHOSHAL, S. and BARLETT, C.A. (1997): The Individualized Corpora-tion: A Fundamentally New Approach to Management, Harper-Collins Publishers, New York.

GHOSHAL, S., BARTLETT, C., & MORAN, P. (1999): «A New Manifesto for Management», Sloan Management Review, 4(39): 9-20.

HARMELING, S., SARASVATHY, S. & FREEMAN, R. (2009): «Related Debates in Ethics and Entrepreneurship. Values, Opportu-nities, and Contingency», Journal of Business Ethics, 84: 341-365.

HANNAFEY, F. (2003): «Entrepreneurship and Ethics: a Literature Review», Journal of Business Ethics, 46(2): 99-110.

HAYEK, F. A. VON (1976 [1945]): «The Use of Knowledge in Society», in Individualism and Economic Order, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.

—(1989): «The Pretence of Knowledge» (Nobel lecture), Ame-rican Economic Review, December: 3-7.

HUERTA DE SOTO, J. (2010): Socialism, Economic Calculation and Entre-preneurship, Edward Elgar, Chetelham, UK.

—(1979): Perception, Opportunity and Profit, University of Chi-cago Press, Chicago.

—(2000): The Driving Force of the Market, Routledge, London.

KNIGHT, F. (1921): Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, Augustus Kelly, NY.

KOSLOWSKI, P. (1996): Ethics of Capitalism and Critique of Sociobio-logy, Springer Verlag, Berlin.

LEIBESTEIN, H. (1968): «Entrepreneurship and Development», American Economic Review, 58: 72-83.

MACHAN, T. (1999): «Entrepreneurship and Ethics», International Journal of Social Economics, 26(5): 596-606.

MARÍAS, J. (1996): Persona, Alianza Editorial, Madrid.

MISES, L. VON (1996): Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, B.B. Greaves (ed.), 4th edition revised, Foundation for Economic Education, New York.

MOORE, G. (2002): «On the Implications of the Practice-Institution Distinction: MacIntyre and the Application of Modern Vir-tue Ethics to Business», Business Ethics Quarterly 12(1): 19-32.

—(2005a): «Humanizing Business: A Modern Virtue Ethics Approach», Business Ethics Quarterly, 15(2): 237-255.

—(2005b): «Corporate Character: Modern virtue ethics and the Virtuous Corporation», Business Ethics Quarterly, 15(4): 659-685.

MORAN, P., and GHOSHAL, S. (1999): «Markets, Firms and the Pro-cess of Economic Development», Academy of Management Review, 24(3): 390-412.

NELSON, R. and WINTER, S. (1982): An Evolutionary Theory of Eco-nomic Change, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. NORTH, D. (1991): «Institutions», Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5(3): 97-112.

NUSSBAUM, M. (2011): Creating Capabilities. The Human Development Approach, Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

NUSSBAUM, M. and SEN, A. (1993): The Quality of Life. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

PINCKAERS, S. (1985): Le sources de la morale chrétienne, University Press, Friburg.

PORTER, M.E. (1996): «What is Strategy», Harvard Business Review, 74 (6): 61-78.

RICHARDSON, H. (1997): Practical Reason about Final Ends, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

—(2000): «Some Limitations of Nussbaum’s Capabilities», Quinnipiac Law Review, 9: 309-332.

ROBBINS, L. (1969): An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Econo-mic Science, 2nd ed., Macmillan, London.

SHANE, S. (2000): «Prior Knowledge and the Discovery of entre-preneurial Opportunities», Organizational Science, 11(4): 448-469.

SHANE, S. and VENKATARAMAN, S. (2000): «The Promise of Entre-preneurship as a Field of Research», Academy of Manage - ment Review, 25(1): 217-226.

SCHUMPETER, J.A. (1934): Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Har-per & Row, New York.

—1947: The Theory of Economic Development, Harvard Univer-sity Press, Cambridge, MA.

SEN, A. (1999): Development as Freedom, Knopf, New York.

—(2002): Rationality and Freedom, Harvard Belknap Press, Har - vard.

—(2009): The Idea of Justice, Harvard University Press, Harvard.

SIMON, H.A. (1969): Sciences of the Artificial, MIT Press, Boston.

SOLOMON, R.C. (1992): Ethics and Excellence: Cooperation and Integrity in Business Oxford University Press, New York.

—(2004): «Aristotle, Ethics and Business Organizations», Or-ganization Studies, 25 (6): 1021-1043.

TEECE, D.J., PISANO, G. & SHUEN, A. (1997): «Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management», Strategic Management Journal 18: 509-534.

VENKATARAMAN, S. (1997): «The Distinctive Domain of Entrepre-neurship Research», Advances in Entrepreneurship, Firm Emer-gence and Growth, 3: 119-138.

Downloads

Published

2013-07-01

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

The firm is a creative institution: the driving force of entrepreneurship. (2013). REVISTA PROCESOS DE MERCADO, 10(2), 17-38. https://doi.org/10.52195/pm.v10i2.189