Entrepreneurial Imaginaries: Finding the Fortune in Futures
这篇演讲呼吁历史学家和社会科学家深入研究人类想象力的本质及其在商业中的作用，通过分析父亲留下的商业计划，提出“创业想象”概念，并探讨想象力如何影响创业者的愿景、自我认知和道德判断。
This address calls on historians and other social scientists to delve deeper into the nature of human imagination and its role in business. Interpreting a business plan written by my father prior to his death, I draw attention to the opportunity to use such sources to study the formation and consequences of “entrepreneurial imaginaries.” By this term, I mean the situated and embodied process by which human beings imagine desirable future ventures. Drawing on insights from neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology, I explore how recognizing the embodied nature of human imagination can deepen our understandings of how our subjects (a) imagine their ventures, (b) imagine themselves, and (c) imagine the moral worth of their venture in society. I conclude by highlighting why some of the sources and methods used by business historians may be particularly well suited for studying imagination and its relationship to entrepreneurship and change.