Indigenous entrepreneurship? Setting the record straight

Abstract

We provide an historical essay synthesising the macro societal processes that affected Indigenous peoples’ entrepreneurial and trade activities in Canada from pre-contact to 1920. Adopting Indigenous entrepreneurship and institutional theory lenses, we find that the evolution of legal, political, and socio-economic forces converged to undermine Indigenous peoples’ entrepreneurial activity and well-being in Canada. Our narrative suggests a dynamic view of the relationship between entrepreneurship and institutions and the role of power. Whereas Baumol’s view is that institutions shape entrepreneurship by determining the relative payoffs to productive or unproductive entrepreneurship, our narrative shows the ways in which unequal benefits to various entrepreneurs change institutions over time. This advances the field of entrepreneurship by historically situating entrepreneurial processes in settler society and exposing the role of power in the relationship between entrepreneurship and institutions in society over time.