A historical, ontological and epistemological exploration of the concepts of entrepreneurship

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is a theme present in today's society, the subject is searched on the internet by people from different groups, google searches are an example that indicates the path that individuals are taking in order to understand the creation and exploitation of businesses. This interest also translates among researchers from different areas of knowledge in science, who need to understand the philosophical bases of concepts, fundamental for any scientist in their choices of objectives and method. This article aims to identify the main concepts of entrepreneurship, in an ontological, historical and epistemological exploration. It goes through the etymology of the concept in its roots and the trajectory of the term historically with its influences in each of the periods of the calendar. Perspectives from economics, administration, sociology and psychology are presented. Subsequently, an ontological proposition of the concept of entrepreneurship is made, identifying the nature of being of productions between objectivist (macroscopic), objective-subjectivist (mesoscopic) and subjective-creativist (microscopic) perspectives. In the epistemological sense, concepts are covered from a dual point of view, opposing structuralist proposals (in the description of characteristics) and functionalist proposals (in the understanding of the relationships between events). Finally, it is emphasized that from this scenario of searches on entrepreneurship, the exercise of conceptual scientific understanding becomes importante, in overcoming dichotomies.