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This dissertation examines how contemporary entrepreneurship and innovation research can inform and renew the normative framework of the Social Market Economy. Drawing on neoliberal, and particularly ordoliberal ideas, the Social Market Economy has rarely been linked to systematic insights from entrepreneurship and innovation research, reflecting their early stage of development at the Social Market Economy’s inception. Three manuscripts address this gap at different levels of analysis. At the micro level, a quantitative study explores how socioemotional wealth in family firms moderates the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and innovation performance. At the meso level, a design science project develops principles for national innovation agencies that are compatible with Social Market Economy ideals such as privilege-free competition and technological neutrality. At the macro level, a literature review revisits Walter Eucken’s Principles of Economic Policy to clarify the meaning of neoliberalism and its implications for innovation policy. Combining empirical, conceptual, and design science research, the dissertation advances a more nuanced understanding of innovation in the Social Market Economy, not solely as the outcome of competition, but as a system-level outcome shaped at the interface between state and market. It argues for a Social Market Economy capable of supporting productive entrepreneurship and innovation while upholding its commitment to privilege-free competition and human flourishing.
