Mark Casson

Mark Casson (born in 1945) is a professor of economics at the University of Reading in England. He was Head of Department (1987–94) and is currently Director of the Centre for Institutional Performance there. His research spans entrepreneurship, international business, business and economic history, and the economics of culture.

Together with Peter Buckley, he developed the internalisation theory of the multinational enterprise which is widely used to analyse the internationalisation of firms. He also developed the modern economic theory of entrepreneurship through a synthesis of the ideas of Joseph Schumpeter, Friedrich Hayek and Frank Knight. According to this theory, successful entrepreneurs demonstrate good judgement in making risky innovations, and are rewarded through either profits or salaries depending on whether they act as owners or managers of their firms.

His research led him to conclude that culture and institutions influence the performance of both individual entrepreneurs and large multinational corporations. He developed a leader-follower theory of culture in which leaders set cultural norms which condition the way in which entrepreneurs and managers take decisions. Historical research is the natural way to test such a theory, and his recent work has therefore focused on the application of institutional theory to business history and economic history. This led him to undertake a major study of Victorian British entrepreneurship - the building of the railway system through private enterprise - which is the subject of his most recent book.