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The Social Context for High-Potential Entrepreneurship in the United States: An Historical-Institutional Perspective

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Comparative Entrepreneurship Initiatives

Part of the book series: Palgrave Macmillan Asian Business Series ((PAMABS))

Abstract

The rise of the United States to global industrial leadership in the late nineteenth century was powered by a sustained, rapid growth of firms that were founded to exploit the new opportunities presented by the conjunction of mass production technology and the large, homogeneous U.S. market (Chandler, 1977; Nelson and Wright, 1992). In the first half of the twentieth century, American business seemed to many observers to have congealed into oligopolistic (or even monopolistic) structures. The conventional wisdom hailed this development, viewing oligopoly as both stable and innovative. Galbraith (1952: 91), for instance, described the large firm as an “an almost perfect instrument” of technological development in American Capitalism.

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Authors
  1. David M. Hart
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Missouri-St. Louis, USA

    Chikako Usui (Associate Professor of Sociology) (Associate Professor of Sociology)

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© 2011 David M. Hart

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Hart, D.M. (2011). The Social Context for High-Potential Entrepreneurship in the United States: An Historical-Institutional Perspective. In: Usui, C. (eds) Comparative Entrepreneurship Initiatives. Palgrave Macmillan Asian Business Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230314368_7

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