Society
Where Are All the Entrepreneurs Gone in Japan?
For a nation that once boasted the likes of Sony, Toyota and Mitsubishi as its entrepreneurial heralds, Japan’s entrepreneurial record in the new millennium is surprisingly sparse. Indeed, entrepreneurs in Japan have become the exception rather than the norm. Common problems faced by aspiring entrepreneurs include the lack of venture capital, labyrinthine government regulations, and the dominance of large companies. Yet for all these factors, it takes two hands to clap – you need both an environment conducive to startups as well as people who aspire to be entrepreneurs.
Egypt’s Twin Forces for Change: Tech-Saavy Youth and the Region’s Entrepreneurs
"This was not a generation gap as much as it was an information technology revolution" says Dr. Iman Bibars, Vice President at Ashoka and founding director of the Ashoka Arab World program.
Are Entrepreneurs the Source of Economic Crises?
Entrepreneurship is often depicted as the solution to society’s problems, the sure path to higher economic growth for nations. Countless journal articles and books have glorified entrepreneurs, turning the Gateses and Zuckerbergs of the world into celebrities and icons. In this concert of praises, casting a critical eye onto entrepreneurship has become a taboo. Yet Madoff was an entrepreneur, too.
Exploring the Economic Experiment (I): Hypothesis Development
Why do societies need entrepreneurs? The question might sound naïve. However, the great Schumpeter himself seems to have doubted. In his early work, the famous economist celebrated the courage associated with the Unternehmergeist(entrepreneurial spirit) that he saw as driving innovation and modernity in nations. Later on in his career though, as a Harvard professor, Schumpeter apparently changed his mind and argued that large companies are more apt to innovate than entrepreneurs since they have the resources to do so.
The Interplay of Mind, Hand, and City: Investigating Urbanism and Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship and innovation thrive in intellectual environments where the synergy of great minds, abundant resources and cultural zeal all reinforce the productive faculties of theory and practice, mind and hand. MIT has an enviable track record of producing world-class research and also contributing to and benefiting from an urban environment amenable to entrepreneurship. An exploration of the interplay between urbanism and entrepreneurship at MIT and the Greater Boston area can be revealing. It may provide telling insights for planners in academia, government and private industry about the necessity of considering the subtle interplay between research institutions and the surrounding urban environment.
The Interaction Hierarchy: A Theory of Technical Standards and Regulations
Standards and regulations are at the very core of what makes us human. Without standard interactions and methods of communication, what we now consider “society” could never have developed. Nonetheless, we are constantly innovating, creating new products and processes that do not yet have standard parts or regulated interactions. This leads to one of the fundamental questions of human social organization as well as of innovation: when and how should standards and regulations be implemented?
