Organic or Deliberate

• Published date: 01 December 2016
• Date: 01 December 2016
• DOI: 10.1177/0003603X16673944

Article

Organic or Deliberate:

A Comment on ‘‘Applying

the Ecosystem Metaphor

to Entrepreneurship:

Uses and Abuses’’

Stuart Read*

Abstract

The impetus for understanding where novelty comes from in the environment is clear. Entrepreneurs

create new jobs for themselves, new offerings for customers and broader economic and social benefits

for society at large. The difficult part comes in understanding the source of this novelty well enough

that it might be instrumented, managed and encouraged. The companion essay to this one (Applying the

Ecosystem Metaphor to Entrepreneurship: Uses and Abuses) adopts a perspective that ecosystems create

entrepreneurs, and thus effort need be applied to creating ecosystems. I reverse the causality. Arguing

for the agency of creative entrepreneurs, I suggest a view of environments as outcomes, and entre-

preneurs as inputs. Building on this alternative perspective, it makes sense to direct effort toward

creating entrepreneurs such that they might go on to create that broader slate of artifacts we so desire

in the environment, including environments themselves.

Keywords

Entrepreneur, agency, ecosystem, creation, environment

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the

only thing that ever has.

1

*Atkinson Graduate School of Management, Willamette University, 900 State Street, Salem, OR, USA

Corresponding Author:

Stuart Read, Atkinson Graduate School of Management, Willamette University, 900 State Street, Salem, OR 97301, USA.

Email: sread@willamette.edu

1. FRANK G. SOMMERS &TANA DINEEN,CURING NUCLEAR MADNESS 158 (1984) (quote attributed to Margaret Mead).

The Antitrust Bulletin

2016, Vol. 61(4) 574-579

ªThe Author(s) 2016

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DOI: 10.1177/0003603X16673944

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