Abstract

We demonstrate how successful entrepreneurship depends on a collaborative innovation bloc (CIB), a system of innovation that evolves spontaneously and within which activity takes place through time. A CIB consists of six pools of economic skills from which people are drawn or recruited to form part of a collaborative team, which is necessary for innovation-based venturing to flourish. The six pools include entrepreneurs, inventors, early- and later-stage financiers, key personnel, and customers. We show how the application of the CIB perspective can help make institutional and evolutionary economics more concrete, relevant, and persuasive, especially regarding institutional prescriptions. Generally, we envision an institutional framework that improves the antifragility of CIBs and the economic system as a whole, thus enabling individual CIBs and the broader economic system to thrive when faced with adversity.

Innovative Entrepreneurship as a Collaborative Effort: An Institutional Framework

Innovative Entrepreneurship as a Collaborative Effort: An Institutional Framework synthesizes the authors previous work to draw conclusions and identify new directions. It puts the spotlight on collaborative innovation blocs (CIB) and improves our understanding of how and why entrepreneurial plans are formulated and revised over time. The authors envision an institutional framework that improves the “antifragility” of CIBs and the economic system as a whole, thus enabling individual CIBs and the broader economic system to thrive when faced with adversity.

Section 2 discusses how and when collaborations occur in the market order and identify entrepreneurship as an inherently collaborative function. Section 3 describes the collaborative innovation bloc and each of its skill components: entrepreneurs, inventors, early- and later-stage-financiers, key personnel, and customers. Section 4 identifies the most important critical areas affecting CIBs, thus demonstrating the usefulness of this perspective for understanding when innovation comes (and does not come) about. The last section discusses the key takeaways and limitations of the perspective before highlighting fruitful avenues for future research.