Abstract

The entrepreneurial capitalist emerged in the mid-1980s as a type of hero differentiated from the often-demonized big-business managerial capitalist. In this paper, theory is developed to explain the emergence of the entrepreneurial capitalist as hero. It is proposed that this heroic image has resulted in a cognitive re-framing of the entrepreneurial business leader's value to society. So re-framed, this societal attitude towards the entrepreneurial capitalist has diffused around the world as knowledge of a newly-acceptable organizational form for fostering the supply of goods and services to market. This knowledge has even spread to new acceptance of the capitalist as the lifeblood of economic development, with privately-owned micro and small enterprises seen as heroic by national governments. The theory of entrepreneurial capitalist as hero is proposed as an explanation for the empirical observation that the for-profit business is emerging as the organizational form of choice for North American and European conservative Christian missionaries in developing countries.