Entrepreneurship, General’) in 1755, Richard Cantillon was the

Say looked at different characteristics of an entrepreneur, and most notably wrote that administration and resource coordination were key skills for entrepreneurs and that they use sound judgement to “buy materials, collect labourers and find consumers” (Robert F. Hébert, 1888, p. 38). The French school of thought suggests that management and resource acquisition take priority over innovation.

With its factor of production management and coordination, Amazon is the front-runner in the e-commerce industry and shows how Say’s theory of entrepreneurship works in practice. With an intense management structure and high productivity with regards to its allocation of goods and service, Amazon is the fourth most valuable public company in the world (Encyclopedia, 2017). This suggests that using resources efficiently and intelligently is central to entrepreneurial success. Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1934), classed as the German-Austrian school of thought, went against existing views surrounding entrepreneurship as being a risk-bearer and a manager of a company – instead choosing to describe an entrepreneur as someone who tried to destroy commonality within a market, by introducing a game-changing product or service to an industry – characterised by Radical Innovation. Schumpeter derived this idea from Marxist thought suggesting that it was the innovative entry by entrepreneurs that caused and sustained economic growth, acting as a disruptive force, even if that meant extinguishing the value of already established firms. The suggested idea of radicalinnovation in a market causes cycles of “creative destruction” (Schumpeter, 1994, p. 83), within his earlier theory branded an entrepreneur as an innovator who is able to “act with confidence beyond the range of familiar beacons” (Schumpeter, 1994, p. 132).

In his introduction to the book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy by Joseph Schumpeter Richard Swedberg, a Swedish Sociologist states that Schumpeter “argued that economic life always starts with the actions of a forceful individual and leads to the rest of the economy” (Schumpeter, 1994, p. xi), suggesting that there is a knock-on effect to the rest of the economy due to Radical Innovation. Interestingly, there are other Economists who agree with Schumpeter’s idea; Cheah (1990), suggested that Radical Innovation can lead on to Incremental Innovation, the innovation discussed early by Kirzner. The abolishment of the status quo enables other, arguably lesser, Innovation to occur in incremental steps.

Even though the new ventures threaten “continued viability of existing products/processes” (Paul Westhead, 2013), it stimulates the introduction of new entrepreneurs of a range of new processes and developments complementary to theoriginal endeavour. Mark Casson, a British economist and academic, drew on different theories regarding entrepreneurship, including those of Joseph Schumpeter’s theory of innovation and Israel Kirzner’s theory of opportunity-seeking, in order to develop a theory that fitted alongside neo-classical ideas. His theory is very similar to that of Richard Cantillon and states that entrepreneurship is the pursuit of risky innovative projects that may contribute to the economy – efficiency and growth. How successful these ventures are, will depend on drive of the entrepreneur and their perceived future rewards such as salaries or profits. Contrastingly to Schumpeter’s views, Casson sees entrepreneurs as risk bearers in the economy.