Using the movie Joy to teach innovation and entrepreneurship

Abstract

Film and video clips have been used in the classroom to bring economic concepts to life. The authors use the 2015 film Joy to animate Joseph Schumpeter’s The Theory of Economic Development, a foundational text on the theory of innovation and entrepreneurship that remains relevant for students today. They outline Schumpeter’s theory of innovation and entrepreneurship and connect it to various scenes in Joy that illustrate the key points Schumpeter seeks to make. Beyond its value as a teaching tool for making sense of Schumpeter's often dense prose, the authors argue that teaching Joy also can have a positive effect for undergraduate women in economics through its strong female protagonist.

Keywords:

• Education
• entrepreneurship
• innovation
• Joseph Schumpeter
• movies

JEL CODES:

• A20
• B31
• O31
• O33

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Acknowledgments

We thank Christina M. Dalton and Amanda Griffith for helpful comments.

Notes

1 The Theory of Economic Development was first published in German in 1911. The standard English translation appeared in 1934 (Schumpeter 1934) and is still available in cheap paperback form. Becker, Knudsen, and Swedberg (2012) provide a detailed retrospective on the influence of Schumpeter’s book over the first one hundred years since its publication. Dalton and Gaeto (2019) show citations to The Theory of Economic Development have increased as a share of total citations to all works by Schumpeter, increasing from 32% to 46% over the years 2003–2017. This increasing share is occurring as the total number of citations to Schumpeter is increasing, so citations to The Theory of Economic Development are increasing in an absolute sense as well.

2 This seems like a good place to point out Joy is rated PG-13 for brief strong language. Although we think the movie is appropriate for classroom use, instructors should, of course, preview the movie and make their own determination. If the entire movie is not shown, there are still plenty of G-rated scenes throughout the movie which can be used to illustrate Schumpeter’s theory of innovation and entrepreneurship.

3 It is important to show students what is captured in Schumpeter’s theory of entrepreneurship but also what is not captured. Joy provides not only an excellent example of an entrepreneur but a female entrepreneur, one facing challenges male entrepreneurs are unlikely to face, especially given her role as a mother. Schumpeter (1934) does not provide a separate discussion on female entrepreneurship, so this is an area instructors can explore with students during classroom discussion.

4 Introducing Schumpeter’s three categories of obstacles as a point of classroom discussion allows students to think not only about how Joy portrays these obstacles but also how the obstacles relate to students’ own lives. Asking students which category of obstacles they think would be the biggest challenge for them personally forces students to put themselves in the position of an entrepreneur and think more deeply about Schumpeter’s ideas. Dalton and Logan (forthcoming) provide a sample classroom dialogue for how a discussion of this type might unfold.

5 Representative comments include the following: “I really liked the movie Joy and thought it was a great way of showing what Schumpeter believed to be the qualities of an entrepreneur and why the path to becoming an entrepreneur can sometimes be difficult.”; “This movie posed a great opportunity to see another entrepreneur (and a female at that!) in action and understand the process which went behind her innovations.”; “When Trudy becomes Joy’s creditor, the final question that she asks her was interesting. She is asking her if she has the guts and is willing to take the risks that come with the journey of becoming an entrepreneur. She is testing Joy’s competitive skills. While watching the film, it helped me understand more the role of a creditor.”; “I thought that the handout provided was going to be a burden and take away from me enjoying the film. However, I found it incredibly useful in writing down my thoughts and ideas about how the movie pertained to large themes and minute details in our class.”; and, “The discussion that we had as a class was very insightful in better understanding the relation between Schumpeter’s theory and the movie. There were some aspects of the movie that I did not even think related to Schumpeter’s views. However, after the class discussion, some of these segments were very topical.”

6 This is a suggestion. We have not yet successfully tried this idea in a principles course.

Additional information

Funding

Financial support from the Szurek Mathematical Economics Fund at Wake Forest University is gratefully acknowledged.