Conceptualizing Knowledge Intensive Entrepreneurship: Concepts and Models.

Paper in proceeding, 2010

This paper examines knowledge intensive entrepreneurship in various ways and represents a broad framework within which the AEGIS project will take place. Knowledgeintensive entrepreneurship is considered a key socio-economic phenomenon that drives innovation, and economic growth, and is at the base of the competitiveness of countries. After an initial definition of knowledge intensive entrepreneurship and the main concepts, in Section 1 we will present the proposed conceptual framework that will guide our research. Then in Section 2 we will concentrate on what the literature has said about entrepreneurship: we will divide the brief survey into economics (section 2.1), industrial dynamics (section 2.2) and innovation management (section 2.3). We will then turn into what has already been researched about knowledge intensive entrepreneurship by examining KEINS, an EU exploratory project carried out in the last years (section 3). Following a presentation of the main results from KEINS, we will introduce the main points of AEGIS, centered on linking firms, knowledge and systems (section 4). Finally, in the last section, we will focus on analyzing the phenomenon of KIE. This includes first an examination of the various empirical dimensions of AEGIS in its attempts to develop indicators to explore, identify and measure knowledge intensive entrepreneurship. We then conclude with some final considerations