A survey on entrepreneurship and innovation

This article attempts to use the early works of Joseph A. Schumpeter to more clearly functionally define both entrepreneurship and innovation in their current usage. The case is made that much of the more recent literature concerning entrepreneurship and innovation can be traced in origin to Schumpeter's works in the zx1930s. Much of the literature on innovation of the 1960s and 1970s either resembles or builds on the works of Schumpeter and the impending debate by economic scholars about his criteria for innovation and its relevance to economics. The article also separates the concepts of capitalist and entrepreneur as did Schumpeter and, therefore, attempts to dispel the current notion that an entrepreneur is synonymous with the small business owner or capitalist. Innovation is used as the key, and therefore function, of a sociological type of individual known as the entrepreneur. Currently accepted concepts of technology change and technology development are discussed within the framework of economics and are linked to Schumpeter's view of innovation as economic activity that changes the production function.