Mapping the aliran of the academic discipline of entrepreneurship: A ...

said that the seeds of genesis for Schumpeter to be often described as the father of
entrepreneurship were based upon what could be considered a minor ‘state of crisis’ in
rational economics which could not accept the intuitive entrepreneur advocated by
Schumpeter. However, as mentioned in the previous section I do not be lieve that the
discipline emerged with Schumpeter simply because I doubt that Schumpeter’s comments
on the entrepreneurship can be epistemically justified.
4.3.2.02 Can Schumpeter’s comments on the entrepreneur be epistemically justified?
By default ‘yes’ as the episteme obviously regards his works as something of an icon, a
‘must-cite’. Whether the consistent level of citation to Schumpeter is actually because
people have read his work or simply feel the need to cite Schumpeter’s articles because of
their iconic status and not to do so would render their work less than authentic, remains an
issue that will not be possible to prove or disprove. I would tend to place the works of
Schumpeter with Smith and Knight in the forum of being intellectuals, rather than
academics per se with regards to entrepreneurship. While I cannot comment on their works
on economics in this regard, I would place them as intellectuals with specific regards to
entrepreneurship. Their works would form part of the discourse on rather than the
discipline, of entrepreneurship.
4.3.2.03 Schumpe ter advanced a theory on ‘the entrepreneur’ that really had no
epistemic justification besides probably a good dose of common sense, and a need for a
start point for his theories on business cycles. Personally I think Schumpeter did a great
dis-service by using the term ‘the entrepreneur’ when I think that using t he entreprene urial
process or function, would have done the whole discourse, and later discipline, a much
better service. I have previously discussed my own opinion that I have been entrepreneurial
at times in my life, but deny myself the title of ‘entrepreneur’, believing that such a title is
not only temporary but also cannot be justified. Somehow within some of the
behaviouralist ontologies on entrepreneurship, the term ‘the entrepreneur’ has become
something akin to a life peerage. Barth concurs “that an entrepreneur should not be treated
as a status or a role, but rather as ‘an aspect of a role: it relates to actions and activities, and
not rights and duties” [cited in Jannicke, 2007, p6]. However the intuitive (non-rational)
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