国外营销论文00McGrath_1999_AMR.pdfVIP

CAcademy of Management Review 1999, Vol. 24, No. 1, 13-30. REALOPTIONS FORWARD: FALLING FAILURE REASONINGAND ENTREPRENEURIAL RITA GUNTHER MCGRATH Columbia University Although failure in entrepreneurship is pervasive, theory often reflects an equally pervasive antifailure bias. Here, I use real options reasoning to develop a more balanced perspective on the role of entrepreneurial failure in wealth creation, which emphasizes managing uncertainty by pursuing high-variance outcomes but investing only if conditions are favorable. This can increase profit potential while containing costs. I also offer propositions that suggest how gains from entrepreneurship may be maximized and losses mitigated. Schumpeter linked wealth creation directly to The popular (and sometimes the scholarly) en- the entrepreneurial process, through which thusiasm for risk taking in the entrepreneurial new combinations of factors of production are process wanes considerably at the prospect of introduced into an economic system (1950: 83). failure (Baker, Aldrich, Langton, Cliff, 1997). Entrepreneurship creates new processes, puts Researchers mourn the cost of new business underutilized resources to new uses, initiates failure, attempt to root out