Entrepreneurial opportunities for all? Entrepreneurial capability and the Capabilities Approach

摘要

This paper considers the freedom of each and every one of us to choose to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities – that is, to practise entrepreneurship – should we wish to do so. Drawing on the Capabilities Approach, a novel conceptualization of entrepreneurial capability is put forward as the individual freedom to pursue an entrepreneurial opportunity within one's environment. In shifting analytical attention away from empirical cases of entrepreneurs (that is, those identified post hoc with successfully pursuing an entrepreneurial opportunity) and exploring the potential (or otherwise) of any individual to pursue entrepreneurship in theory, we are forced to ask what is specific about entrepreneurial opportunities and whether they can be pursued by anyone. Our resulting conception of entrepreneurial capability introduces seven universal and necessary conditions for this distinctive type of freedom to be present. The significance of this conceptualization of entrepreneurial capability for entrepreneurship theory and economic and human development policy is discussed.ud