The Emergence of Entrepreneurship Policy Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editor's Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- PART ONE THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SOCIETY: WHAT'S GOVERNANCE GOT TO DO WITH IT?
- PART TWO HIGH-TECH ENTREPRENEURSHIP: THE UNIVERSITY-INDUSTRY-GOVERNMENT CONNECTION
- 4 Start-ups and Spin-offs: Collective Entrepreneurship Between Invention and Innovation
- 5 Entrepreneurship and American Research Universities: Evolution in Technology Transfer
- 6 America's Entrepreneurial Universities
- PART THREE EQUITY ISSUES IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP POLICY
- PART FOUR SECTOR-SPECIFIC ISSUES
- PART FIVE IMPLEMENTING ENTREPRENEURSHIP POLICY
- Afterword
- References
- Index
4 - Start-ups and Spin-offs: Collective Entrepreneurship Between Invention and Innovation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editor's Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- PART ONE THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SOCIETY: WHAT'S GOVERNANCE GOT TO DO WITH IT?
- PART TWO HIGH-TECH ENTREPRENEURSHIP: THE UNIVERSITY-INDUSTRY-GOVERNMENT CONNECTION
- 4 Start-ups and Spin-offs: Collective Entrepreneurship Between Invention and Innovation
- 5 Entrepreneurship and American Research Universities: Evolution in Technology Transfer
- 6 America's Entrepreneurial Universities
- PART THREE EQUITY ISSUES IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP POLICY
- PART FOUR SECTOR-SPECIFIC ISSUES
- PART FIVE IMPLEMENTING ENTREPRENEURSHIP POLICY
- Afterword
- References
- Index
Summary
The function of entrepreneurs is to reform or revolutionize the pattern of production by exploiting an invention, or more generally, an untried technological possibility for producing a new commodity or producing an old one in a new way, by opening up a new source of supply of materials or a new outlet for products, by reorganizing an industry, and so on…. To undertake such new things is difficult and constitutes a distinct economic function, first because they lie outside of the routine tasks which everybody understands and secondly, because the environment resists in many ways that vary, according to social conditions, from simple refusal either to finance or buy a new thing, to physical attack on the man who tries to produce it.
Joseph A. Schumpeter (1942: 132)INTRODUCTION
The most successful new technology ventures generate tremendous returns for their investors (see Scherer and Harhoff 2000). Interest in capturing a share of such potentially large returns has stimulated rapid growth in recent years in both the number and diversity of institutions specialized in supporting the commercial development and marketing of new technologies. These include venture capital firms, corporate venture funds, incubators of various types, niche law firms, university and government offices of technology transfer, and networks of individual private equity, or “angel,” investors. The funds available for the support of technology entrepreneurship have grown accordingly. Indeed, at present, by some measures, the supply of such funds seems to exceed the demand.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Emergence of Entrepreneurship PolicyGovernance, Start-Ups, and Growth in the U.S. Knowledge Economy, pp. 61 - 91Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003
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