26th International Association for Management of Technology Conference - IAMOT 2017

Economic development involves change and therefore the entrepreneur figures, as gap and input filler, to be its prime mover. The recognition of the importance of the entrepreneurs and the markets in which they operate has led many countries to foster entrepreneurship. Within this context, entrepreneur may be perceived either as an adjective that solely reflects a behavior or as the economic agent related to innovative activities. Nevertheless, the entrepreneurial behavior does not ensure economic development solely by the establishment of new businesses or self-employment. Economic development hinges then on innovation, translated in the knowledge application within economic activities by the economic agent. In that sense, leading a business company does not necessarily mean to innovate and, consequently, to aggregate value and impact significantly on the economic development. What we argue here is that to be self-employed or to own a business is not sufficient to be considered an entrepreneur, if it does not master a specific knowledge that may be translated into innovation. However, worldwide rankings suggest that countries such as Uganda, Thailand and Brazil are the most entrepreneurial countries in the world, due to self-employed individuals, even though not being the most developed countries, nor promoting innovation. With that in mind, the purpose of this paper is to discuss the nature of entrepreneurial activities in economies that are not innovation driven. To illustrate the dynamic of entrepreneurship in such economy, the Brazilian case is analyzed through the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) data. In Brazil, there are several policies to promote entrepreneurial activities and, in 2015, the Brazilian government announced that the country was the most entrepreneurial nation in the world. Thus, Brazil has been figuring as a country with a culture favorable to entrepreneurship. However, data show that Brazilian businesses are not established based on knowledge accumulation. Considering that the country presents few novelties on the technology applied on new businesses’ creation, as well as low value adding, the common sense turned to deviate and adapt the entrepreneurial function to the simple act of opening a new business company. We conclude then that the so-called Brazilian entrepreneurs open businesses based on already existing products, which are based on already existing knowledge. In other words, the new Brazilian businesses are far from being actually new and are not led by entrepreneurs (innovators), according to the proposed definition, but by business owners (value circulator). Results highlight then the importance to consider the nature of entrepreneurship in different economies in order to support entrepreneurial activities that, in fact, promote economic development through innovation.