juni
2009
Iværksætteren og manageren2
Dagens artikel fra Mises indeholder et interessant perspektiv på iværksætteren versus manageren - interessant, ihvertfald når man, som jeg, er stud.merc MIB (innovation og forretningsudvikling).
Artiklen er et uddrag fra Mises’ egen Human Action, og giver stof til eftertanke, når man sammenholder med den (store) del af faglitteraturen, der taler om, at medarbejdere kan/skal være iværksættere og innovative indenfor virksomhedens fire vægge. Og så giver den naturligvis også bredside til ideen om, at innovation og iværksætteri med fordel kan foretages med risikofrihed og for andre folks penge (læs: skattekroner).
Her et par citater:
The managerial function is always subservient to the entrepreneurial function. It can relieve the entrepreneur of a part of his minor duties; it can never evolve into a substitute for entrepreneurship. The fallacy to the contrary is due to the error confusing the category of entrepreneurship as it is defined in the imaginary construction of functional distribution with conditions in a living and operating market economy. The function of the entrepreneur cannot be separated from the direction of the employment of factors of production for the accomplishment of definite tasks. The entrepreneur controls the factors of production; it is this control that brings him either entrepreneurial profit or loss. It is possible to reward the manager by paying for his services in proportion to the contribution of his section to the profit earned by the entrepreneur. … But the manager cannot be made answerable for the losses incurred. These losses are suffered by the owners of the capital employed. They cannot be shifted to the manager.
Society can freely leave the care for the best possible employment of capital goods to their owners. In embarking upon definite projects these owners expose their own property, wealth, and social position. … For society as a whole the squandering of capital invested in a definite project means only the loss of a small part of its total funds; for the owner it means much more, for the most part the loss of his total fortune. But if a manager is given a completely free hand, things are different. He speculates in risking other people’s money. He sees the prospects of an uncertain enterprise from another angle than that of the man who is answerable for the losses. It is precisely when he is rewarded by a share of the profits that he becomes foolhardy because he does not share in the losses too.
(Jeg er naturligvis ikke stødt på Mises i cand.merc MIB pensum, men hvem ved… måske har jeg overset ham. Dog skal det retfærdigvis siges, at vi læser Michael Jensen, Harvard, som jeg vil påstå er enig i følgende af Mises’ udsagn om, hvad manageren skal foretage sig: “The only instruction required is self-understood and does not need to be especially mentioned: seek profit”.)