Austrian Economics and Organizational Entrepreneurship: A Typology

Abstract

This article develops a typology for making sense of the numerous strands of Austrian (and Austrian-related) economics and demonstrates how this typology can guide organizational entrepreneurship scholars wishing to ground their research in Austrian thought. In the process, not only are existing insights from the history of Austrian economic thought rediscovered, but clearer light is also shed on important perspectives from that tradition that have received less attention in entrepreneurship research. Based on the Austrian concept of entrepreneurial production and its relationship with the core concepts of knowledge and change, the typology yields four perspectives—equilibration, punctuated equilibrium, disequilibration, and punctuated disequilibrium. These perspectives’ different paradigms as used in organizational research are explored, along with their ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions. The typology is illustrated with selected empirical examples from organizational research to spotlight the types of questions that contemporary scholars may appropriately ask and answer from each perspective.