Opening the black box of entrepreneurship: The Italian case in a historical perspective

The main objective of this paper is to shed light on the Italian entrepreneurship between the beginning of the second industrial revolution and the end of the twentieth century. It is based on a new dataset concerning the profiles of 386 entrepreneurs. The results are twofold: first, by proposing an empirically based taxonomy of Italian entrepreneurs not exclusively founded on intuitions and qualitative judgements, the article provide valuable interpretative elements; second, the article puts forward some hypotheses about the relationship between entrepreneurship and Italian economic growth. In particular a cluster analysis singles out five different entrepreneurial typologies characterised by a widespread tendency to search for new markets, yet a scarce attitude towards innovation. Further it is suggested that the evolution of the institutional context slowed down the development of the entrepreneurial abilities and virtues necessary to grow.