Expanding Schumpeterian Resource-Centrality (A1)

In contrast to the first generation of Austrian school economists, Schumpeter proffered that the course of the ceaseless evolution that characterizes economic machination is cyclic in nature. In Schumpeter’s view, the cycle is one of creative-destruction resulting primarily from smaller firms acquiring advantage through innovative practices and eclipsing larger firms. The innovator is made entrepreneur by his/her capacity to propel this cycle by generating and/or manipulating the resources that lubricate and fuel ever-renewing industry. And, since it is innovation that underpins industrial power, the entrepreneur is chief actor. On this premise, entrepreneurialism becomes itself an essential – if not the most essential – resource.

In the Schumpeterian model, business success is also dependent on the stimulation of employee efficiency, and if employee vitality can be considered a resource, then the importance of resources in the Schumpeterian model is enlarged. Schumpeter’s concept of creative destruction is also resource-relevant, insofar as the concept depicts the centrality of sets of resources (technologies, stock, organizational techniques, or working paradigms) that are necessarily rendered obsolete (destroyed) by the creation and introduction of sets (combinations) of superior resources.