The entrepreneur has traditionally been considered in economic analyses as the core of the process of continuous innovation that characterizes modern economies. Often positioned as an alternative to standard economic theory, this framework was mainly elaborated by the evolutionist and Austrian traditions to explain the link between innovation and economic development. However this conceptualization of the "entrepreneur" conceals another approach, that introduced by Marshall and developed by Penrose, which offers a different view of entrepreneurial action and enables the introduction, in between innovation and economic development, of the role of the industrial organization. JEL codes: B13, B25, L20, L26, O31