Technology Entrepreneurship: Overview, Definition, and Distinctive Aspects

Technology entrepreneurship lies at the heart of many important debates, including those around launching and growing firms, regional economic development, selecting the appropriate stakeholders to take ideas to markets, and educating managers, engineers, and scientists. Unless a generally accepted definition of technology entrepreneurship is established, however, these debates lose their focus. The purpose of this article is to identify the themes that dominate the technology entrepreneurship literature, provide a definition of technology entrepreneurship, and identify its distinguishing aspects relative to economics, entrepreneurship, and management. The author argues that technology entrepreneurship is an investment in a project that assembles and deploys specialized individuals and heterogeneous assets to create and capture value for the firm. What distinguishes technology entrepreneurship from other entrepreneurship types (e.g., social entrepreneurship, small business management, and self-employment) is the collaborative experimentation and production of new products, assets, and their attributes, which are intricately related to advances in scientific and technological knowledge and the firm’s asset ownership rights