Knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship: outline for a research agenda on entrepreneurial action in Brazil

Abstract

This study emerges from the need to propose an alternative to the current debate on knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship, which has focused, especially in Brazil, on the political-institutional incentives as the drives of the phenomenon, to the detriment of the entrepreneurial action itself. The paper attempt to articulate some conceptual advances of the general theory of entrepreneurial action with empirical aspects observed in the economic behavior of entrepreneurs, especially those that show a more open orientation towards the commercial use of scientific and technological knowledge. The argument emphasizes the importance of complementing a current perspective that these entrepreneurs choose to act only when they are compelled by the objective conditions given by the context. Therefore, a research agenda is proposed seeking to understand how the phenomenon has been taking place in Brazil, which attaches greater importance to the study of the specific process of entrepreneurial action by these knowledge entrepreneurs, their strategic behavior and the way they connect trajectories and mobilize professional networks to perceive opportunities and make choices.

Keywords:
Knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurial action; Innovation; Sociology of entrepreneurship