Schumpeter's entrepreneurs in the 20th century: The Tucker automobile

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze Schumpeter's concept of entrepreneurship applied to the example of Preston Tucker, the American automobile designer who conceived the Tucker 48, which was briefly produced in Chicago in the late 1940s.Despite this paper addresses the first attempts of economics to comprehend and explain the role of the entrepreneur, it will focus primarily on the theoretical approaches on entrepreneurship and economic innovation developed by Joseph Schumpeter in the beginning of the 20th century.Moreover, the paper will analyze a particular example of such entrepreneurship by understanding how innovative industrial concepts and ideas may lead to a destructive creative process, which ultimately may result in new industries and businesses.Finally, taking Tucker's example as a benchmark the paper explores Schumpeter's theories regarding the role of the entrepreneur in disturbing the monotonous flows of the markets.