Collective Action; A Mechanism Toward Development of Productive Entrepreneurship

Today entrepreneurship has become one of the most important factors affecting economic development in many countries. However, it is very important to direct entrepreneurial actions toward productive activities. Baumol's theory of productive versus unproductive entrepreneurship highlights the role of institutional environment in directing entrepreneurial actions toward either productive, unproductive, or even destructive outcomes. So, to establish institutions that support productive entrepreneurship, it is necessary to find the means which have an impact on institutional and regulatory environment. Although many studies have been conducted based on Baumol's theory so far, only a small number of researches proposed solutions for establishment of legal and regulatory institutions required for the development of productive entrepreneurship. Hence, this study is aimed at proposing a synthesized theory derived from Baumol's theory of entrepreneurship and the theory of collective action. Our synthesized theory can be utilized as a rule-making approach to address this challenge. This synthesized theory highlights the role of both the government’s and entrepreneurs’ collective action in formation of regulatory and legal institutions which in turn can influence productive entrepreneurship. The proposed theory suggests that the order which is created upon the collective action can play an effective role in emergence and expansion of productive economic development.