Collective Entrepreneurship in a Globalizing Economy

Mourdoukoutas argues that as globalization gains momentum and reengineering becomes universal, firms can no longer be sure of achieving sustainable competitive advantages through improved operating effectiveness alone. The new business strategy will focus on revenue growth and on the constructive destruction of conventional corporations, through collective entrepreneurship and its division in the product supply chain. To enhance revenues through the management of constructive destruction, companies must achieve organizational mutations and permutations, turning themselves from hierarchical managerial units into entrepreneurial networks. These entrepreneurial networks are communities that share a common fate: the risks and rewards associated with the discovery and exploitation of new businesses. Mourdoukoutas says that in some cases entrepreneurial networks can be extended outside the conventional borders of the corporation—vertically to suppliers, distributors, and customers, and horizontally to former competitors. In such networks the focus of business strategy should not be on the division of labor by task or process; rather, upon the divison of entrepreneurship and its diffusion among all of the firm's members. This is a challenging and thoughtful study and analysis for corporate management and their academic colleagues.

PANOS MOURDOUKOUTAS is Professor of Economics at Long Island University, where he teaches and conducts research on the Japanese and Asian economies. He travels extensively throughout Asia and Europe and holds an appointment at Nagoya University, Japan. Among his various publications are The Global Corporation (Quorum, 1999) and China Against Herself (Quorum, 1999, with Yuko Arayama).