Joseph S. Schumpeter (1942, pp. 82–83) coined the term “creative destruction” to characterize the process by which entrepreneurial entrants displaced stagnant incumbents, resulting in “industrial mutation that continuously revolutionizes the economic structure from within (emphasis added), incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one.” Schumpeter's insights regarding economic structures apply not only at the industry and country levels but also at a global level. Over the last century, the emergence of many economies from “third world status” by leveraging the twin engines of entrepreneurship and innovation in global markets for resources, products, and services has challenged the competitiveness of many developed economies (Leamer, 2007), even as it provides higher levels of consumer surplus across all economies through enhanced productivity and increased efficiencies.

When we (and our dear departed coauthor MB) coined the term “creative construction” in Agarwal, Audretsch, and Sarkar (2007), our intent was not to challenge Schumpeter (1942) as being wrong, nor to suggest that creation of the new did not manifest in destruction of the old. Rather, it was to dig deeper into the term “from within”—how the “old” resulted in the birth of the “new”—by asking the questions of “how new entrants emerge, why the process of displacement occurs, and whether increasing returns to knowledge investments could benefit entrants, incumbents, and the economy alike (Agarwal et al., 2007; p. 263).” To answer these questions, we relaxed two implicit assumptions in the rich literature on creative destruction—potential zero‐sum games between “new” entrants and “old” incumbents and exogeneity of entrepreneurial opportunities. This enabled us to develop a framework that linked the endogenous creation of opportunities to new firm formation through the interface between knowledge spillovers (from incumbents) and strategic entrepreneurship (by entrants). Moreover, we extended our framework in Agarwal, Audretsch, and Sarkar (2010) to include entrepreneurial activity by incumbent firms for strategic renewal. In doing so, we provided the microfoundations of industrial and economic growth. The same framework is also applicable to “born global” industries, such as mobile money, that have facilitated economic growth through new financial systems. Wormald, Agarwal, Braguinsky, and Shah (2020) report that the rapid international diffusion in the industry is underpinned by creative construction: Incumbents and entrants created and captured value through sharing of complementary knowledge and capabilities within and across national boundaries.

The health crisis induced by the Covid‐19 pandemic has created economic challenges “from without” for each and every country in the world and has additionally threatened established global supply chains. The causal link established by Schumpeter—where the creative forces precede and result in destruction of the “old” in favor of the “new”—is in this instance broken: Covid‐19 has resulted in an “exogenous” destruction in all aspects of economic structures, including and not limited to employment opportunities, traditional work practices, interorganizational relationships, supply chains, and innovation ecosystems.

Within the context of the world during and after the Covid‐19 pandemic, we believe the creative construction framework is just as applicable as before and, indeed, has an enhanced significance. Even in the face of unprecedented destruction, the entrepreneurial spirit that leverages past knowledge, ideas, experience, and know‐how to create and construct new economic structures can and will pave the way forward. For example, a simple thought experiment—what if Covid‐19 had hit just 25 years earlier?—reveals how responses to the pandemic, from telemedicine and videoconferencing to in‐home delivery of critical products and services, rest on innovations introduced since 1995 (Agarwal, 2020). Mirroring the updated fig. 1 depicting knowledge spillovers and strategic entrepreneurship in Agarwal et al. (2010), these innovations combine prior knowledge investments within existing organizations and entrepreneurial action by new ventures—such as Amazon, Google, Instacart, Netflix, and Zoom—and corporate entrepreneurs—such as 3M, Cisco, IBM, and Microsoft—alike. In academia alone, many institutions have creatively transformed existing instructional models and constructed virtual learning almost overnight—a phenomena replicated across multiple industries as remote work became a standard rather than an exception (Choudhury, Foroughi, & Larson, 2019).

Looking forward, as people, firms, and industries within and across countries continue to confront challenges and harness unexpected opportunities triggered by the pandemic, our scholarly community plays an important role in examining how the process of creative construction addresses not only issues of economic recovery but also social inclusion, public health, environmental sustainability, and—importantly—the reclaiming of democracy (Audretsch & Moog, 2020). Covid‐19 reminds us that economic mobility is not always upward and that enterprising individuals and firms armed with relevant knowledge depend upon many market institutions that foster collaboration and generate knowledge spillovers. Thus, a critical boundary condition to the process of creative construction is the existence of well‐functioning market institutions that facilitate win–win outcomes. These institutions have served us well in the past—so well that our knowledge spillover strategic entrepreneurship framework took them for granted. For example, perhaps the biggest challenge presented by Covid‐19 may well be the zero‐sum framing that challenges these institutions, as evidenced by the increased calls against globalization and the rise of isolationism and nationalism (Razin, Sadka, & Schwemmer, 2020; Vogel, 2020). Extensions to our framework may well focus on uncovering and relaxing its implicit assumptions. We also call for future research that examines the unintended consequences of broad‐brush policies that may undercut these taken‐for‐granted institutions that foster human enterprise. In doing so, we are inspired by history's repeated demonstration that collaboration by enterprising individuals, whether fostered within organizations or markets, is what underpins creative construction and is critical to alleviating destruction.

约瑟夫·熊彼特（Joseph S. Schumpeter，1942年，第82-83页）创造了“创造性破坏”一词来表征企业家进入者迁徙停滞的现任者的过程，从而导致“工业突变不断地从内部革命性地改变经济结构，不断摧毁旧的，不断创造新的。” 熊彼特对经济结构的见解不仅适用于行业和国家，而且适用于全球。上个世纪，通过利用企业家精神和资源，产品和服务全球市场创新的双引擎，许多经济体从“第三世界地位”中崛起，已经挑战了许多发达经济体的竞争力（Leamer，2007年）。），尽管它通过提高生产率和效率来在所有经济体中提供更高水平的消费者剩余。

当我们（和我们亲爱的已故的合著者MB）在Agarwal，Audretsch和Sarkar（2007）中创造了“创造性建筑”一词时，我们的意图不是挑战Schumpeter（1942）是错误的，也不是建议创建新的。没有体现在对旧的破坏中。相反，它是通过问“新进入者如何出现，为什么发生流离失所的过程以及是否发生新移民的问题”来更深入地研究“从内部”一词，即“老”如何导致“新”的诞生。知识投资回报的增加可以使进入者，老牌企业和经济都受益（Agarwal等人，2007年; p。263）。” 为了回答这些问题，我们放松了丰富的关于创造性破坏的文献中的两个隐含假设，即“新”参与者和“老”参与者之间的潜在零和博弈以及创业机会的外生性。这使我们能够开发一个框架，通过知识溢出（来自在位者）和战略创业（由进入者）之间的接口，将内生的机会创造与新公司的建立联系起来。此外，我们在Agarwal，Audretsch和Sarkar（2010年），以包括现有公司进行战略更新的创业活动。在此过程中，我们提供了工业和经济增长的微观基础。相同的框架也适用于“天生的全球”行业，例如移动货币，这些行业通过新的金融系统促进了经济增长。Wormald，Agarwal，Braguinsky和Shah（2020）报告说，该行业在国际上的迅速传播受到创造性建设的支撑：在职者和进入者通过在国界内和国界之间共享互补的知识和能力来创造和获取价值。

由Covid-19大流行引起的健康危机给世界上每个国家“从无到有”带来了经济挑战，并进一步威胁了已建立的全球供应链。在这种情况下，熊彼特建立的因果联系被打破了：在这种情况下，创造力先于而导致了对“旧”的破坏，而对“新”的破坏。Covid-19导致了各个方面的“外源”破坏。经济结构，包括但不限于就业机会，传统工作习惯，组织间关系，供应链和创新生态系统。

在Covid-19大流行期间和之后的世界范围内，我们认为创造性的构建框架与以前一样适用，并且确实具有增强的意义。即使面对前所未有的破坏，利用过去的知识，思想，经验和专有技术来创建和构建新的经济结构的企业家精神也可以并且将为未来铺平道路。例如，一项简单的思想实验（如果Covid‐19仅在25年前就发生了什么？）揭示了从1995年以来引入的创新对远程流行的反应（从远程医疗和视频会议到关键产品和服务的内部交付）（阿加瓦尔（Agarwal），2020年）。镜像更新的图。1描述了Agarwal等人的知识溢出和战略创业。（2010年），这些创新将现有组织中的先验知识投资与新兴企业（例如Amazon，Google，Instacart，Netflix和Zoom）以及企业企业家（例如3M，Cisco，IBM和Microsoft）的企业家行动相结合。仅在学术界，许多机构就创造性地改变了现有的教学模式，并在一夜之间构建了虚拟学习-随着远程工作成为一种标准而不是例外，这种现象在多个行业中得到了复制（Choudhury，Foroughi和＆Larson，2019年）。

展望未来，随着国家内部和国家/地区的人员，公司和行业继续面临挑战并利用大流行引发的意想不到的机会，我们的学术界将在检验创造性建设过程如何不仅解决经济复苏问题而且解决问题方面发挥重要作用。社会包容，公共卫生，环境可持续性，以及重要的是民主的复辟（Audretsch＆Moog，2020年）。Covid‐19提醒我们，经济流动性并不总是向上发展的，拥有相关知识的进取心的个人和公司取决于许多促进合作并产生知识溢出的市场机构。因此，创造力建设过程的一个关键边界条件是，存在运转良好的，促进双赢结果的市场制度。这些机构过去为我们提供了很好的服务，以至于我们的知识溢出战略创业框架将其视为理所当然。例如，Covid‐19提出的最大挑战可能就是挑战这些机构的零和框架，这证明了反对全球化的呼声日益高涨以及孤立主义和民族主义的兴起（Razin，Sadka和Schwemmer，2020年）; Vogel，2020年）。对我们框架的扩展很可能集中在发现和放松其隐含假设上。我们还呼吁进行进一步的研究，以检验可能会削弱这些旨在促进人类事业发展的理所当然的机构的粗暴政策的意外后果。在这样做的过程中，我们受到了历史的反复证明的启发，即，无论是在组织内部还是在市场中，由进取的个人进行的协作都是支撑创造性建设的关键，对于减轻破坏至关重要。