In this set of lectures in Unlocking the Ivory Tower, I'm talking about entrepreneurship. Definitions of entrepreneurship have varied over the years, but here I'll use one that was developed in 2000 by Shane [Envencat]: "Entrepreneurship is the examination of how, by whom and with what affects opportunities to create future goods and services are discovered, evaluated and exploited." Those lead us to some big questions. Why do some people and not others discover and exploit opportunities that are at the heart of entrepreneurship? Why doesn't everyone? Do opportunities just exist out there in the world as objective beings or are they subjective?

The area of entrepreneurship research dates back to economics work in the 18th and 19th centuries. Most often, it is was in France and, in fact, the word "entrepreneur" comes from the French word for "undertaker," someone who undertakes an activity. The points we cover in this section include: entrepreneurship, why would you study it, opportunities and opportunity recognition, entrepreneur entry and organizational emergence, entrepreneur finance, resource and economic impact, and international entrepreneurship.