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CHAPTER VI - The Nature of Enterprise

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Barry Supple
Edited by
E. E. Rich  and
C. H. Wilson
General editor
D. C. Coleman ,
P. Mathias  and
M. M. Postan
Barry Supple
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
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Summary

A study of the economic processes of any society encompasses a wide variety of topics, all of which are the proper province of the economic historian. Although the rationale of the present study is the same as that of economic history, the history of enterprise gives primary emphasis to only one aspect of economic behaviour: the function of organizing, coordinating, and directing economic agents in the task of producing goods and services. Central to such a study is the entrepreneur. And any true understanding of the historical function of enterprise involves an appreciation of the origins, motives, and opportunities of entrepreneurs; of the techniques at their disposal and the institutions which they create; of the extent to which they innovate, at various levels, in order to attain their ends; of the encouragement which they enjoy, the obstacles which they overcome, and the success which attends their activity.

An examination of the nature of enterprise cannot be confined either to private businessmen or to innovators. Historically, governments have always assumed entrepreneurial functions and organized economic institutions: the early modern State was too important an element in the framework and display of enterprise to be disregarded in a survey such as this. In addition, the approach envisaged here does not pre-suppose any sharp division between ‘creative’ and ‘routine’ enterprise; quite apart from the fact that novelty and tradition are normally intermingled in any branch of entrepreneurial activity, the apparently repetitive aspects of enterprise are frequently as significant, in economic terms, as those which are spectacularly new.

Keywords

economic environmentearly modern periodcorporate enterpriseEuropean aristocracyEuropean nationsinternational Enterpriseindustrial enterprise
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Economic History of Europe , pp. 393 - 461
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1977

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