Abstract

Is entrepreneurship always contributing positively to society? This chapter demonstrates the relevance of raising this question by highlighting negative political entrepreneurship that can occur in close collaborations between entrepreneurs from the private sector and political entrepreneurs. We problematize negative entrepreneurship and its societal impact by linking it with the effects of conflicts of interest and corruption. Our general conclusion is that changes to the way public administration operates create opportunities for political entrepreneurship, but may also entail risks in terms of negative political entrepreneurship. We discuss negative political entrepreneurship by linking it with research on conflict of interest and corruption and thereby we focus the discussion on aspects that research shows has particularly negative impacts on society.