Making It Happen: Beyond Theories of the Firm to Theories of Firm Design
Year: 2004
Type: article
Abstract: Current theories of the firm provide no explanation for entrepreneurial success except in terms of firm success. Even when the focus is on the entrepreneur, s/he is entirely cast as a bundle of traits/behaviors or heuristics/biases that serves to explain firm performance. In this article, I suggest putting the entrepreneur center stage, adopting an instrumental view of the firm. Drawing upon the work of Simon in symbolic cognition and Lakoff in semantic cognition, I explore how we can go beyond explanations based on economic forces and evolutionary adaptation to entrepreneurial effectuation; I end with specific research questions pertaining to firm design.
Author: Saras D. Sarasvathy
Institution: University of Virginia
Language: English
Subfield: Management of Technology and Innovation
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1984872539