Schumpeter’s Research Programme from the Perspective of Participant Observers: Towards Supra-Schumpeterian Economics

The article is structured in two parts. The first surveys major developments in the Schumpeterian programme over recent decades and examines—drawing on the author’s perspective as a participant observer—variations in the reception of Schumpeter’s work. These are illustrated by Nobel Prize awards, the foundational role of innovation and knowledge in Schumpeterian theory building, and the emergence of supra-Schumpeterian economics as a response to large-scale transformation challenges. These strands rest on an integrative methodological pluralism of the kind Schumpeter himself envisaged. The second part adopts a more imaginative perspective by casting Schumpeter himself as a participant observer reflecting on the evolution of the Society and the intellectual trajectory associated with his name. Viewed from this angle, the remarkable expansion, differentiation, and endurance of Schumpeterian research stand in marked contrast to Schumpeter’s own episodes of radical self-doubt, as documented in his diary.