Digging among the roots of entrepreneurship

Abstract

Without claiming to be an exhaustive exposition of two of the most important perspectives in the field of entrepreneurship studies, this paper points out some key distinctions between the Austrian Economics and Schumpeterian perspectives on the process of entrepreneurship. It employs a comparative approach and addresses point by point the nature of entrepreneurial opportunities, the sources of uncertainty in the initialization of entrepreneurial action, the process of competition and its role in the market as well as the relationship between entrepreneurship and knowledge. The article examines the importance attributed by these two perspectives to the socio-economic environment in which entrepreneurial activity arises, instead of focusing directly on their exclusively economic aspects.