Entrepreneurial theory and economic facts: elements of analysis drawn from the Japanese, Chinese, Indian and Korean experiences.

Summary Does the economic movement create the entrepreneur? Or is it, on the contrary, the entrepreneur who creates the economic movement? We propose to show that the entrepreneur, the central agent of capitalism, is a social construction, legitimized by European liberal theory. In Europe, liberal economists maintain that the entrepreneur is the engine of the economy. This conception is criticized by their opponents, who point to the capitalist logic, characterized by the domination of large firms, which leads to the disappearance of the entrepreneur, replaced by a team of specialists (managers) and financed by the "absentee owners" (shareholders). This phenomenon illustrates the process of socialization of capitalist production (intensification of market exchanges, generalization of the division of labor, socialization of corporate capital). The heroic entrepreneur of the early days of industrialization is now replaced by the socialized entrepreneur, whose freedom of action is limited to making a place for himself according to the strategies of large firms and public policy measures, intended, depending on the period, to stimulate either large firms or small businesses. In Asia, criticism of the entrepreneur is rooted in the Confucian tradition: the merchant is criticized for his individualism. The bad image of the entrepreneur was maintained during industrialization, which was largely driven by the state. It is only since the 1980s that the entrepreneur has become an accepted part of Asian thinking, under the criticism of liberal economists who denounce the hold of the state in favour of individual initiative. In fact, large corporations and the state, not the entrepreneur, are at the root of Asian economic prosperity. However, despite the concentrated structure of Asian economies, the entrepreneur is emerging, in a socialized form, due to the crisis.