or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
Express Checkout with PayPhrase
What's this? | Create PayPhrase
More Buying Choices
84 used & new from $1.47
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
The Entrepreneurial Imperative: How America's Economic Miracle Will Reshape the World (and Change Your Life)
 
 
Share your own customer images
Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.
Tell the Publisher!
I’d like to read this book on Kindle

Don’t have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.
 
  

The Entrepreneurial Imperative: How America's Economic Miracle Will Reshape the World (and Change Your Life) (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
List Price: $24.95
Price: $17.12 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $7.83 (31%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Want it delivered Tuesday, November 24? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details
39 new from $5.92 42 used from $1.47 3 collectible from $24.95

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
  Hardcover, September 30, 2006 $17.12 $5.92 $1.47

Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with Harvard Business Review on Entrepreneurship (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series) by William Andrews Sahlman

The Entrepreneurial Imperative: How America's Economic Miracle Will Reshape the World (and Change Your Life) + Harvard Business Review on Entrepreneurship (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series)
Price For Both: $32.08

Show availability and shipping details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Harvard Business Review on Entrepreneurship (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series)

Harvard Business Review on Entrepreneurship (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series)

by William Andrews Sahlman
4.3 out of 5 stars (16)  $14.96
Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity

Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity

by Robert E. Litan
3.7 out of 5 stars (22)  $14.96
Contemporary Financial Management (with Thomson ONE)

Contemporary Financial Management (with Thomson ONE)

by James R. McGuigan
3.7 out of 5 stars (11)  $170.80
Business Law and the Regulation of Business

Business Law and the Regulation of Business

by Barry S. Roberts
3.1 out of 5 stars (7)  $176.40
Management by Baseball: The Official Rules for Winning Management in Any Field

Management by Baseball: The Official Rules for Winning Management in Any Field

by Jeff Angus
4.2 out of 5 stars (5)  $18.36
› Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Reading The Entrepreneurial Imperative it's hard not to like Carl J. Schramm. [A]n optimistic cheerleader for American capitalism." (-Stephen Wolter, Corporate Report Wisconsin )

"[E]ssential reading to understand and prepare for our personal lives and the future." (-Steve Forbes, CEO and Editor in Chief, Forbes )

"Schramm unlocks the key to growth. . . and roots it in the American spirit inside us all." (-Scott Cook, founder of Intuit )

"[E]ssential reading to understand and prepare for our personal lives and the future." (-Paul Orfalea, founder of Kinko's and author of Copy This! )

"[The] one book that lays out.why entrepreneurship matters. The Economist didn't call Schramm the "evangelist of entrepreneurship" for nothing. (-Paul Kedrosky, Infectious Greed )

"As Carl Schramm argues . in The Entrepreneurial Imperative, no country has mastered innovation and entrepreneurship as effectively as America." (-The Economist )


Product Description

In 2004, Carl Schramm, president of the Kauffman Foundation, the world's leading foundation for entrepreneurship, published a groundbreaking essay with a radical premise: that Americans literally have no conception of the secret that truly underlies our economic success, and that for the United States to survive and continue to lead the world's economy, it is imperative we learn to understand and employ that secret.

The secret that has led the American economy to become the world's strongest? Our unparalleled skill as entrepreneurs. As Schramm compellingly shows in this sweeping manifesto, entrepreneurship alone—not anything else—can give America the necessary leverage to remain an economic superpower. Not technology, since everyone now has the same technology, or access to it. Not education—we are years behind other nations in this area. Not basic manufacturing, long since moved overseas from the United States. And not capital markets, now truly global entities.

Drawing on detailed research conducted by the Kauffman Foundation and on his decades of experience as an entrepreneur himself and as a leader and mentor to other entrepreneurs, Schramm persuasively demonstrates in detail what this entrepreneurial imperative means for the way we run universities and foundations, lead companies, make personal job decisions, and even conduct our foreign affairs. The Entrepreneurial Imperative will change not only the way our government, corporations, and nonprofits operate, but also our day-to-day lives as working Americans.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 208 pages
  • Publisher: HarperBusiness (October 10, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 006084163X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0060841638
  • Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #329,664 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

More About the Author

Carl J. Schramm
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

› Visit Amazon's Carl J. Schramm Page

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

The Entrepreneurial Imperative: How America's Economic Miracle Will Reshape the World (and Change Your Life)
82% buy the item featured on this page:
The Entrepreneurial Imperative: How America's Economic Miracle Will Reshape the World (and Change Your Life) 4.0 out of 5 stars (12)
$17.12
Harvard Business Review on Entrepreneurship (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series)
7% buy
Harvard Business Review on Entrepreneurship (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series) 4.3 out of 5 stars (16)
$14.96
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
4% buy
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich 4.2 out of 5 stars (909)
$13.57
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
4% buy
Innovation and Entrepreneurship 4.3 out of 5 stars (10)
$11.86
Explore similar items

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(2)
(1)
Agree with these tags?

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more
 

Customer Reviews

12 Reviews
5 star:
 (6)
4 star:
 (4)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
31 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Getting The Facts and the Arguments Wrong, December 19, 2006
I was one of the first people to rush out and get this book. I assumed that a book written by the President of the Kauffman Foundation would have important insights into entrepreneurship. Boy, was I wrong!

The book is riddled with inaccuracies. For example, it says that only Israel is a more entrepreneurial country than the United States when the Kauffman Foundation's own research shows only a middling rate of entrepreneurship in the U.S., below that of Peru and Uganda of all places.

In another example, the book says that the current period is the most entrepreneurial in U.S. history, when, in fact, rates of entrepreneurship in the U.S. have been declining for decades.

But it is not just the facts that are a problem. The book's arguments are flawed too. The idea that U.S. foreign policy should focus on entrepreneurship smacks of the 1950s argument that "what's good for General Motors is good for the country". That seems naive, at best.

Similarly, the book is critical of US technology transfer operations. However, we would be hard pressed to improve a system that gave us a company like Google. Dr. Schramm should read the history of Stanford's involvement with Google before he criticize American universities' technology transfer operations.

Finally, the tone of the book is grating. It is both a polemic for entrepreneurship and a PR job for the Kauffman Foundation. Had I wanted that, I could have saved my money and read the materials that the Foundation gives away for free.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
26 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Incorrect, Ignorant, Procelytizing, December 16, 2006
By Aristoteles (Old Europe) - See all my reviews
I bought this book because it appeared on Economist's list of recommended books. This was a mistake.

This book is written as a pamphlet, and its central theme is the glorification of American Enterpreneurial Capitalism. It is all about American self-glorification.

Unfortunately, this book is a poor pamphlet. Worse, it has got many of its facts plainly wrong. It is amazing that the CEO of the Kauffman Foundation, one of the largest supporters of entrepreneurship research in the US, would be so ignorant of basic research facts, as well as of economic growth in general.

The book defines entrepreneurship as "the process by which one or more people undertake economic risk to create a new organization...". Entrepreneurs, then, are people who take risk to create new organizations. So far so good. Too bad that this definition is not actually used in the book. Only 7 pages later, Schramm states that "Entrepreneurship is a mindset." It is unfortunate that this seems to be the definition that he really uses throughout his book.

A "mindset" is an infinitely pliable definition. Indeed, Schramm appears able to see this "mindset" whenever he so chooses and not see it when he does not care to. Sometimes Schramm's "entrepreneurship" appears to be best described as innovation. In other times he appears to refer to plain initiative, as in the case of those early "entrepreneurial" American university presidents Schramm appears to admire (now, how many new organizations did UC Berkeley president Daniel Coit Gilman start, and how much economic risk did he undertake during the process?).

Schramm reveals some of his ideological undercurrents by stating that there is only one country on this planet more "entrepreneurial" than the US. You guessed it: Israel. According to Schramm, Israel is the most "entrepreneurial" country on this planet.

Too bad that available data on new business foundings, new business ownership, and nascent entrepreneurs does not support Schramm's contention. Much of this data his own foundation has helped create.

It is also astonishing how Schramm ignores some 25-odd years of research by suggesting that "entrepreneurs" are special people who are distinctively different from the mainstream population. Schramm would be well advised to publish his discovery, as he seems to have succeeded where hundreds of researchers have failed over 25 years.

Schramm's argument rests on a few key premises: (1) America is the best country on this planet (except perhaps Israel); (2) American "Entrepreneurial Capitalism" is the best economic model there is (Schramm's model is, in essence, one of uninhibited market capitalism with little or no regulation and minimal government); (3) America should actively export this model to other countries so that World Peace would become possible. This is breathtakingly ideological and naive, given, e.g., the disaster USA has recently inflicted upon Iraq.

The closest equivalent of Schramm's economic model appears to be late 19th-century US. At least he does not hide his admiration of the robber barons of that age.

He gets too many facts wrong to list them all here. He maintains that America invented entrepreneurial capitalism. I wonder if he is familiar with the history of 18th and 19th-century England. Similarly, Tim Berners-Lee might be interested to learn that Americans invented the internet.

As an economist, Schramm comes across as surprisingly ignorant of mainstream economic growth theories. As his pamphlet is all about the creation of economic wealth, it is surprising that productivity does not feature anywhere in his story.

So, how good is Schramm's model? Schramm might be surprised to learn that in Sweden, whose 'socialist model' Schramm surely despises, a child born into low-income family is much more likely to advance to a higher income class during her life than is a child born into a poor family in the US.

In other words, to realize the 'American Dream', so extolled by Schramm, he would be well advised to move to Sweden.

In summary, this book is a waste of time and money. It is not a good source of facts, it does not accurately describe the entrepreneurial phenomenon, and it does not even begin to uncover the factors underlying economic growth.
Comment Comments (5) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
4.0 out of 5 stars Great Philosophy on Entrepreneurship!, January 3, 2009
This review is from: The Entrepreneurial Imperative: How America's Economic Miracle Will Reshape the World (and Change Your Life) (Hardcover)
The author states several instances throughout history that have shaped the way American entrepreneurs differ from other entrepreneurs, and how the fate of America rests in the hands of those in control of the abilities given to the individual entrepreneur.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars This is an important topic!
The book The Entrepreneurial Imperative by Carl J. Schramm is subtitled "How America's Economic Miracle Will Reshape the World and Change Your Life". Read more
Published 18 months ago by PurpleSlog

4.0 out of 5 stars Fresh insight to economic thinking
I enjoyed Carl's book. He provides fresh insight among the many economists that all think a like. Carl's insights gave me a fresh perspective on America and what is driving the... Read more
Published on January 11, 2007 by Michael D. Herrington

4.0 out of 5 stars Everyone Needs Basic Business Skills
As a former liberal arts major who picked up my business skills on the fly, I agree with Carl Schramm's contention that entrepreneurial skill development should become a mandatory... Read more
Published on December 21, 2006 by Mom of three girls

4.0 out of 5 stars Mixing it up is a good thing
I was taken with Mr. Schramm's challenge to consider how every individual has a part to play in maintaining America's economic strength. Read more
Published on December 20, 2006 by Kelly Flanigan

5.0 out of 5 stars Entrepreneurship is the future!
This is a very important book. The Entrepreneurial Imperative, like no other book I've ever read, captures the importance of entrepreneurship in America & the rest of the world... Read more
Published on November 3, 2006 by Steve Mariotti

5.0 out of 5 stars America's Competitive Advantage
Carl Schramm shows how the entrepreneurial spirit in all of us will continue to make America the leader in the world economy and serve as a force for positive change throughout... Read more
Published on October 30, 2006 by A reader

5.0 out of 5 stars Right on target!
Where will the ideas come from that will spur new industries and new economic growth for America? From the bottom up. Read more
Published on October 29, 2006 by M. Mulligan

5.0 out of 5 stars HERALDING A NEW BUSINESS ERA: THE ENTREPRENEURIAL ERA!
Five Stars!! "The Entrepreneurial Imperative" is an innovative and idea-driven book by Carl J. Schramm, the President and CEO of the prestigious Kauffman Foundation, "the world's... Read more
Published on October 26, 2006 by RBSProds

5.0 out of 5 stars An Imperative Read
A friend referred me to this author and book, and I highly recommend it to others. It's not like other business books that offer the "five best ways" or the "10 steps" to being... Read more
Published on October 16, 2006 by Dean Thomas

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   

Product Information from the Amapedia Community

Beta (What's this?)

Look for Similar Items by Category

Look for Similar Items by Subject

Search Books by subject:




















i.e., each book must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...
 

Feedback

If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.
 Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
Is there any other feedback you would like to provide?

Your comments can help make our site better for everyone.


Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.