Schumpeterian entrepreneurship and ideation processes

This chapter aims to address the paradoxical portrayal of entrepreneurs in the Schumpeterian tradition. While entrepreneurs are portrayed as key players in economic development in Schumpeter's early works, they essentially disappear in neo-Schumpeterian literature, where their role is replaced by 'routines' as the primary operational component of organizations. This chapter re-establishes the entrepreneur as a producer of ideas, as well as an initiator and orchestrator of creative destruction, by reintegrating what we consider to be the primary “function of entrepreneurship”: generating and proposing new ideas and introducing novelty into the economic system. From this perspective, we argue that ideas, viewed primarily as processes, are the essence of the Schumpeterian entrepreneur’s role at the core of the 'entrepreneurial function', which orchestrates the ideation process by attracting, mobilizing and aligning allies around their vision. This entrepreneurial function takes different forms — from the 'heroic' entrepreneur of early capitalism, to a more 'depersonalized, routinised and automated' entity within large organizations, and, more recently, to an orchestrator within an innovative ecosystem.