The entrepreneurial wide boy. A modern morality tale

Within the field of entrepreneurship, the implicit assumption is that the activities of entrepreneurial individuals promote overall economic prosperity. The entrepreneur is characterised as the visible hand of the market process who, by engaging in the pursuit of entrepreneurial profits, inadvertently improves the economic welfare of others. Recognition of the importance of entrepreneurship to modern economies, coupled with a post-modern culture of individualism, has resulted in the promotion of enterprise and entrepreneurship at both academic and policy levels. Incorporating the entrepreneurial intentions literature, this paper argues that the broad promotion of enterprise and entrepreneurship may, however, lead to consequences or outcomes that are not consonant with the intended aim of wider social prosperity.