Blackwell Reference Online

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In her 1959 seminal work on firm growth, Edith Penrose states that entrepreneurs and managers complement each other. Entrepreneurs innovate and create new markets, usually by starting their own firm, while managers amplify entrepreneurial projects through control and routinization. This image of entrepreneurship and management taking on different roles seems to be very harmonic; the question is whether that harmony remains in times calling for more fluent, network-like structures. Penrose (1995 :xx) in the foreword to her third edition states: “The business network is very different from a cartel of independent firms in its structure, organization, and purpose. … This may call for a new ‘theory of the firm.’” Obviously, there will also be a need for a new image of firm growth and, we argue, a new understanding of the linkages between entrepreneurship and management. Entrepreneurship as the creation of new business and management as the operation of existing firms differ not only with respect to functional assignments in the businessdevelopment process; they also differ in kind. The network metaphor for business organizations in general and small business and entrepreneurial ventures in particular reveals this. Within a management perspective, networks and coalitions, e.g., strategic alliances and joint ventures, represent just another calculated way to intermittently reduce environmental ... log in or subscribe to read full text