Institutions, Economic Freedom, and Entrepreneurship

By Peter G. Klein

Steve Bradley and I have edited a symposium in the August 2016 Academy of Management Perspectives on "Institutions, Economic Freedom, and Entrepreneurship: The Contributions of Management Scholarship." Researchers in management and entrepreneurship are increasinly interested in the institutional environment, both in the "new" institutional sense of Coase and North, which emphasises economic and legal factors, and the "old" institutional sense of writers like Dick Scott and Woody Powell, which takes a sociolgoical and cultural perspective. Entrepreneurship scholars, in particular, are studying the ways the institutional environment faciliates or impedes entrepreneurial activity. The elements of economic freedom -- the rule of law, stable property rights and contract enforcement, a reliable currency, and free markets -- are obviously important to entrepreneurs. But more subtle aspects of the environment, both formal and informal, play a strong role as well. Here is the table of contents:

Steven W. Bradley and Peter Klein
Institutions, Economic Freedom, and Entrepreneurship: The Contribution of Management Scholarship

Jeffery S. McMullen, Matthew S. Wood, and Alexander S. Kier
An Embedded Agency Approach to Entrepreneurship Public Policy: Managerial Position and Politics in New Venture Location Decisions

R. Michael Holmes, Jr., Shaker A. Zahra, Robert E. Hoskisson, Kaitlyn DeGhetto, and Trey Sutton
Two-Way Streets: The Role of Institutions and Technology Policy in Firms’ Corporate Entrepreneurship and Political Strategies

Phillip H. Kim, Karl Wennberg, and Grégoire Croidieu
Untapped Riches of Meso-Level Applications in Multilevel Entrepreneurship Mechanisms

Christian Bjørnskov and Nicolai J. Foss
Institutions, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Growth: What Do We Know and What Do We Still Need to Know?