Entrepreneurship and the Anticipatory Firm

Firms, in most cases, cannot be described adequately as if they were an individual person. And yet, they learn, anticipate, decide, and adapt in order to survive in an uncertain environment. To deal with such aspects of a firm, the theory of the anticipatory system is developed and applied to the specific case of the multiperson firm (one in which knowledge of the firm’s environment and capabilities is distributed among the people in the firm) operating in a market environment in which product design and time-consuming production entail anticipation of an uncertain future and in which this very uncertainty means that adaptive responses will be required as experience accumulates. An important side-effect of this analysis is the recognition that “entrepreneurship” is not a single activity or capability - it is exhibited in different forms and in different places both within the firm and in the encompassing market