Entrepreneurship and institutional change: A research agenda

Abstract

This paper introduces a Special Issue on the theme of Entrepreneurship and Institutional Change. Drawing upon the accumulated literature and three original contributions it aims to explore the conditions and the processes through which entrepreneurship may influence institutional change. The paper argues that entrepreneurs are not only influenced by the prevailing institution(s) but they can also influence (both intentionally and unintentionally) institutional change. This challenges prevailing views about the ability and effectiveness of the state to drive change. The paper also outlines an agenda for future research into how entrepreneurship shapes emerging institutional arrangements.

Keywords:

• entrepreneurship
• institutions
• institutional fields
• institutional entrepreneurship

Notes

1. This point is also made by Perkmann and Spicer (2007) where they argue that the role of institutional entrepreneurs is multi-dimensional (i.e. cultural, technical and political). It is also promoted by Lounsbury and Crumley (2007) in their push for a process model of new practice creation emphasising the multiplicity of actors that interactively produce change.

2. The Dorado (2005) profiling of IE does, however, have some limitations for the empirical study of institutional change. For example, the convening activities can be equally characterised as displaying a set of entrepreneurial behaviours. This is because in mobilising resources through collaborative inter-firm linking, one must also leverage support and acceptance for new institutional arrangements. Likewise, the same can be said for the ‘partaking’ profile of institutional change which could also be categorised as ‘entrepreneurial’ if we take account of the everyday behaviours of small, life style and family businesses whose practices do not bring about sweeping innovative change in institutional patterns, but which do, nonetheless, unwittingly accumulate and converge over time to legitimate acceptance of new regimes, rules and scripts.

3. Such practices have been have been acknowledged in societal and anthropological understandings of entrepreneurship (Katz and Steyart 2000).

4. North argues that opportunities stem from either external changes in the environment, or as a result of new learning and skills gained by actors in the process of economic exchange, and their incorporation in their mental constructs.

5. See Levy and Scully (2007) and Khan, Munir, and Willmott (2007) for discussions of power in institutional entrepreneurship.