پیش‌بینی سیاست پیشرفت (یا توسعه‌یافتگی) اقتصادی: تاثیرگذاری بر بستر سازمانی برای نوآوری در زمینه‌ی کارآفرینی

In this paper we take issue with the standard economic prescription for a “one size fits all” approach to economic development policies. We first argue that the entrepreneur exists in a much broader institutional context than current economic models of entrepreneurship consider. We then develop a definition of entrepreneurship as a special case of foresight—we argue that entrepreneurs are individuals who enact a unique vision of the future, and show how this view of entrepreneurial action leads to a new view of the basis of competitive advantage for startup firms. We then use this definition of entrepreneurship and the expanded view of institutional context to develop a model of entrepreneurial policies that takes the state of economic development and the unique historical context of the country into account. We close by discussing the implications of the model for policy makers and scenario planners in the domain of economic and institutional development.

There can be no question that entrepreneurship is key to a country's economic development. In fact, Schumpeter [2] suggested that entrepreneurial activity is the only way that economic value is created. Most policy makers want to encourage innovation and entrepreneurial activity, but it is difficult to fully appreciate the full impact of policies designed to transform a system as complex as a nation's economy. For example, it seems doubtful that, as Phelps seems to imply in the quote above, policy makers in Western Continental Europe are deliberately trying to introduce institutions that stifle entrepreneurial activity, even if that has been the effect of their policies (a point we will debate in Section 3.2 of this article). Furthermore, even the most fervent advocate of free markets would surely argue for some restriction on the actions of enterprising and ambitious entrepreneurs. This delicate balance of simultaneously encouraging and constraining entrepreneurial activity requires a special kind of foresight that takes the entire institutional context in which the entrepreneur operates into account. Although public policy is naturally future-oriented, policy makers do not necessarily take the social context of their policies into account [3]. Furthermore, those engaged in public policy foresight must recognize that desirable future states cannot be predicted with any certainty [4]. The majority of academic work in this area to date has been undertaken by researchers with a macro-economic perspective, such as Phelps in the introductory quote. In this article, we approach economic development policy from a different perspective. Building on earlier works that have highlighted the role of institutions in the applicability of strategy models [5], and the need for scenario planning to embrace the institutional environment [6], we argue that to stimulate entrepreneurship globally requires a strong focus on designing appropriate institutional contexts. By examining the nature of the context in which the entrepreneur operates, we hope to shed some light on the appropriate public policies for encouraging productive entrepreneurial activity in different economic systems. Specifically, we argue that the current state of the country's economic development as well as its unique history and culture have crucial roles in determining the best policies to shape institutional context for future entrepreneurial success. The scheme of the paper is as follows. We first describe what we mean by an institutional context, taking care to distinguish our model of the entrepreneurial context from the narrower economic model that focuses solely on constraining formal institutions. We then develop a definition of entrepreneurship from a cognitive perspective, and show how this view of entrepreneurial action leads to a new view of the basis of competitive advantage for startup firms. The remainder of the paper shows the public policy implications of our model, paying particular attention to a view of entrepreneurial policy based on the country's unique historical context and current state of economic development rather than any overarching political philosophy. We close by suggesting some implications of our model for scenario planners as well as policy makers.

As we have illustrated in this paper, the world is witnessing a global shift from managerial capitalism [32] to entrepreneurial capitalism [33]. In Table 2, we have summarized the key differences between these two modes of capitalism. In the near future, managerial capitalism will continue to be dominant in the role of institutions. However, as we move further into entrepreneurial capitalism, institutional development will have to follow, and in some cases lead the shift to entrepreneurial capitalism. Charting the paths of economic development is going to be an exciting, relevant and challenging task that brings numerous challenges for both policy makers and scenario planners. 4.1. Challenges for policy makers The shift to an entrepreneurial society will require new thinking about the appropriate institutional response to entrepreneurial activity, and how such activity can be managed to maximize the benefit of all relevant stakeholders. Slaughter [34, p. 153] suggested that this transitional period is an appropriate time to “re-design the Western worldview by retiring defective components and replacing them with consciously chosen equivalents” using, among other things, critical futures studies. This presents a number of challenges for policy makers engaged in institutional foresight. We underscore four major challenges: awareness, simultaneity of top down and bottom up policies, recognition of the contingent nature of policy development, and inevitable balancing of costs and benefits.2 4.2. Awareness The initial challenge will be awareness challenge of the changing contours of capitalism. At the risk of simplification, the current policy debates appear to be couched in two major assumptions: first, for the pursuit of economic growth, the policies of the nation states, especially of developed countries, should facilitate the growth of established firms, and second, policy prescriptions from the developed countries should be applied to other parts of the world. As we shift toward a world of entrepreneurial capitalism, both these assumptions will come under severe stress. We have noted that in this emerging world, cognition – imagination, discovery and visualization – is the primary engine of economic growth and to nurture these policy makers will have to strengthen economic factors with cultural factors. This requires altering the prevailing assumptions that fuel policy debates. 4.3. Simultaneity of top down and bottom up policies Much of national policy making underscores the need for top down approaches. Witness our approaches to infrastructure development, or development of economic, legal and judicial institutions. While top down approaches will continue to retain relevance, entrepreneurial capitalism implies that the locus of initiation is not the federal government but the individual entrepreneur. The role of central government will change in unforeseen ways. For example, the bottom up approaches may involve detecting successful experiments or innovations and then enabling successes to replicate or innovations to diffuse. This nascent orientation will have to be orchestrated or invented for the coming entrepreneurial capitalism. Policy makers must account for the fact that top down planning and reform of institutions such as government regulatory bodies, educational systems and financial markets are unlikely to stimulate entrepreneurial activity on their own. They must be accompanied by policies that change the entrepreneurial culture of the country from the bottom up—by showing individuals how to succeed in entrepreneurial ventures, convincing them that there is a potential payoff commensurate with the risks they are taking, fostering a climate in which entrepreneurship is viewed by citizens as a means to create value for the economy as a whole instead of a means to opportunistically extract value from the economy, and ensuring that entrepreneurial opportunities are available to all segments of the population, not just an affluent and educated elite. China's current product quality issues show how difficult it is to keep top down reforms in balance with bottom up entrepreneurial cognition. 4.4. Contingent nature of development We have argued for a contingent view of entrepreneurial development, where policy makers must take the current state of economic development as well as the existing entrepreneurial culture into account when they envision paths to economic development. It would be easy if one form of institutions or regulatory regimes worked for all economies, but this is simply not the case. Each country has a unique entrepreneurial habitus formed through path dependent historical context. Policy makers have to grapple with a world where many of the top down approaches incubated in the developed economies and disseminated through multinational organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund may not succeed in economies in other stages of development. If development is contingent, economic policy will have to be contingent as well. 4.5. Balancing of costs and benefits Since entrepreneurs are engaged in a process of enacting a desired future state in which there is a profitable demand for their product or service, policy makers must find ways to constrain the possible future states they can enact while at the same time encouraging entrepreneurial activity. Activities that extract value from the economy, or activities that have other social and environmental costs, may not be positive for the economy despite the wealth they create for the individual entrepreneur. In a policy framework, development of entrepreneurial capability and wealth creation must be balanced by social costs and benefits. We can at least point to two costs, one ecological and the other human. Entrepreneurial capitalism cannot guarantee that in the absence of profit potential, a solution to the perceived ecological challenges (e.g., global climate change) will be forthcoming. Indeed, unfettered entrepreneurialism may indeed contribute such impending crises. Similarly, entrepreneurialism typically heightens the uncertainty of the markets, and a section of the population may reject entrepreneurship as life style, generating tensions. These social costs, although they can only be vaguely glimpsed now, need to be traded of against the potential benefits of entrepreneurialism in any policy prescriptions. 4.6. Challenges for scenario planners Acknowledging that entrepreneurs are enacting their unique visions of the future means the scenario planners will have to move from scenarios accounting for limited variation to scenarios acknowledging almost infinite complexity, variety and diversity. Entrepreneurs actively engage in their own special brand of foresight, and most will be wrong. One consequence of this is the increased potential for failure of businesses, especially startups. Another is that current institutions in this domain may decrease in importance or even become irrelevant. Although it has never been possible to predict the future with any certainty, scenario planners must come to grips with a future in which the pace of change is greatly accelerated. Second, scenario planners must understand the cognitive nature of entrepreneurial activity. To understand cognitive facets, we may need to rely on not so easily quantifiable measurement, but on anthropological and field based methods of information gathering. In turn, this may require us to innovate methodologically, both in information gathering and analysis of qualitative and ambiguous information. Finally, we need frameworks and research to guide policy making in entrepreneurial capitalism. We can identify at least three required thrusts. First, alternative paths of movement from managerial to entrepreneurial capitalism will be useful for policy guidance. Second, we need imaginative methods and frameworks to chart bottom up approaches to policy development at the government level. Finally, configurations of top down and bottom up approaches, their costs and consequences are needed for us to help with changes already under way.