Entrepreneurship, both in the conventional wisdom and the academic view, has long been seen as the province of great individuals. Scores of books and articles have been written extolling the virtues of heroic entrepreneurs. This chapter starts from the assumption that this “great man” theory misses the fundamental mechanisms that spur entrepreneurship and economic growth. Indeed, entrepreneurship is more than an economic process and extends beyond the process of new business formation. At bottom, entrepreneurship is a social process that stems from a broad set of social and cultural conditions.

In the contemporary United States, the entrepreneurial impulse has become embedded in a social ethos. The forces that produced this ethos have been building at least since the 1960s, and perhaps longer, but the rise of the entrepreneurial society – or way of life – has become apparent just recently. Entrepreneurship is part of a broader social movement, a shift in what Americans want out of their lives. Consider the following facts.

• Some 60 percent of teenagers and young adults say they want to be entrepreneurs, according to a recent survey (Kourilsky and Walstad 2000).

• A survey of research on entrepreneurship by Patricia Thornton points out that 4 percent of Americans at any given time are involved in starting businesses (Thornton 1999).

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