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STRATEGIC COMMITMENT, UNKNOWLEDGE AND THE NATURE OF ENTREPRENEURIAL ACTIVITY
Abstract
This paper argues that the essence of entrepreneurial activity is ‘strategic commitment’, which encompasses strategic thought and decision, together with commitment based on that strategy. Three distinct types of commitment are identified — resource commitment, psychological commitment and organisational commitment. The implications of a recognition of the pervasiveness of unknowledge in entrepreneurial activity are discussed. The paper also suggests that the term ‘entrepreneur’ be reserved for individuals who have demonstrated a singular aptitude for and commitment to enhancing their organisation's relationship with its environment.
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NOTES AND REFERENCES
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ibid., p. 15.
ibid., p. 140.
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ibid., p. 27.
Shackle's concentration on choice leads him to emphasise subsequent choices as the source of unknowledge, but there are obviously many factors other than human choice which also contribute to our lack of knowledge of history-to-come.
ibid., p. 65.
ibid., p. 76.
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The latter category calls to mind the examples provided by Keynes of “uncertain” knowledge of the future. Among these were “the prospect of a European war …, or the price of copper and the rate of interest twenty years hence, or the obsolescence of a new invention, or the position of private wealth-owners in the social system in 1970. About these matters there is no scientific basis on which to form any calculable probability whatever. We simply do not know.” ‘The general theory of employment’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 51, February 1937, pp. 213–14.
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ibid., p. 85.
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