Productive, Unproductive and Destructive Entrepreneurship: A Theoretical and Empirical Exploration

Drawing on Baumol’s concepts of productive, unproductive and destructive entrepreneurship and relevant amendments, this thesis aims to contribute to the entrepreneurship literature by developing a conceptual framework which allows operationalising the concepts for empirical assessment. Furthermore, using data from longitudinal survey, author makes one of the first attempts to address the concepts empirically. The results provide with support for the conceptual framework highlighting the importance to shift the focus from firms’ activities to output on both, venture and societal levels, short and long term, when concepts are addressed empirically. Overall findings suggest that productive entrepreneurs are those who are less involved in behaviour such as tax avoidance or illegal business and show a higher level of entrepreneurial orientation.