HCBE Faculty Articles
Failure Is an Option: The Entrepreneurial Governance Framework
Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy
ISSN
2045-2101
Publication Date
4-2017
Abstract/Excerpt
Purpose
It has been more than 20 years since the “Reinventing Government” movement swept through the American public sector. Over time, the tenets of public entrepreneurship and new public management have diverged due to liability and risk aversion. One of the core elements of entrepreneurship is risk taking, and with it the likelihood of failure. The purpose of this paper is to reconcile these issues under a simple framework of “entrepreneurial governance” that works across the elements of knowledge, innovation, opportunity, and implementation.
Design/methodology/approach
This is primarily a set of problems (liability, risk aversion, critiques) that negatively impacts the application of public entrepreneurship. To build a framework, the author made a substantive review of the literature to “get back to basics” and clarify the problems, as well as draw fundamental concepts about entrepreneurship.
Findings
The framework was developed by applying the more current notion of “governance” with the basic elements of entrepreneurship, acknowledging that in implementation we have to account for the critiques by reinforcing responsible risk reduction and ethical decision making.
Research limitations/implications
The intent was to create a framework based on fundamental aspects of entrepreneurship. The limitations/implications are that additional research will have to develop more concrete testing methods and then test the framework.
Practical implications
The intent here was to create a “practitioner friendly” prescriptive framework that could be almost immediately applied.
Social implications
A culture shift away from risk aversion (and corrupt practices) has to allow risk taking and with it responsible risk reduction (and failure or success).
Originality/value
The reliance on existing literature reduces some of the originality, except to re-conceptualize public entrepreneurship in a way that accounts for its shortcomings. The value in shifting culture and responsibly reducing risk is difficult to estimate.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1108/JEPP-04-2016-0013
Volume
6
Issue
1
First Page
108
Last Page
126
NSUWorks Citation
Carroll, John, "Failure Is an Option: The Entrepreneurial Governance Framework" (2017). HCBE Faculty Articles. 608.
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/hcbe_facarticles/608
