MCMULLEN SHEPHERD Entrepreneurial Act

஽ Academy of Management Review
2006, Vol. 31, No. 1, 132–152.

ENTREPRENEURIAL ACTION AND THE ROLE
OF UNCERTAINTY IN THE THEORY OF THE
ENTREPRENEUR
JEFFERY S. MCMULLEN
Baylor University
DEAN A. SHEPHERD
Indiana University
By considering the amount of uncertainty perceived and the willingness to bear uncertainty concomitantly, we provide a more complete conceptual model of entrepreneurial action that allows for examination of entrepreneurial action at the individual level of analysis while remaining consistent with a rich legacy of system-level theories of the entrepreneur. Our model not only exposes limitations of existing theories of entrepreneurial action but also contributes to a deeper understanding of important conceptual issues, such as the nature of opportunity and the potential for philosophical reconciliation among entrepreneurship scholars.

ble opportunities for profit (e.g., Begley & Boyd,
1987; Sarasvathy, 2001a; Shane, 2000; Shaver &
Scott, 1991). Like before, entrepreneurial action takes center stage, but this time more in terms of how it occurs and who does it than whether it occurs. The conceptual overlap of these approaches suggests that they are complementary. In fact, researchers of the individual-level approach have frequently borrowed from theories grounded in the system-level approach (e.g., Kaish & Gilad,
1991). However, this can lead scholars to rely on models of entrepreneurial action that are incomplete when applied at a level of analysis other than that intended by the theorist. Accordingly, our purpose in this article is twofold. First, we demonstrate that economic theories of the entrepreneur are theories of action proposing those elements that enhance and hinder individuals from acting entrepreneurially. Although these models may be sufficient for examining entrepreneurial action at the system level, they can collapse when applied at the individual level, making them susceptible to confounded theorizing and inconclusive or misleading

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