Entrepreneurship, the entrepreneur and the territory: an introduction

New ideas and interpretations have been advanced to define and explain entrepreneurship and the entrepreneur's nature and motivations. This chapter deals more directly with entrepreneurship and considers definitions and explanations found in the economic literature. It considers human agency in entrepreneurship, the entrepreneur and how it is treated in the economic literature. The chapter also considers entrepreneurship as an increasingly collective effort of actors having different features and playing different roles. It explores the territory as social space represents a fundamental aspect of entrepreneurship, particularly at local level. Entrepreneurship is important on its own merits and particularly so in open and internationally integrated economies, yet it is an elusive concept. The entrepreneur is usually defined as the human agent of entrepreneurship. Moreover, entrepreneurship can play different roles in different situations: from innovation and competitiveness to imitation and survival, and the search of shortcuts to each of these ends through irregular practices.