ABSTRACT

The growth of entrepreneurship research has been accompanied by an increased convergence and institutionalization of the field. In many ways this is of course positive, but it also represents how the field has become "mainstream" with the concomitant risk that individual scholars become embedded in a culture and incentive system that emphasizes and rewards incremental research questions, while reducing the incentives for scholars to conduct challenging research.

This book challenges this status quo from accepted theories, methodologies and paradigmatic assumptions, to the relevance (or lack of) for contemporary practice and the impact of key journals on scholars’ directions in entrepreneurship research.

An invited selection of the younger generation of scholars within the field of entrepreneurship research adopt a critical and constructive posture on what has been achieved in entrepreneurship research, the main assumptions which underly it, but also open-up new paths for creative entrepreneurship research in the future. This is a must-read for all scholars, educators and advanced students in entrepreneurship research.

part I|110 pages

Consensus challenges

chapter 2|16 pages

Entrepreneurship research with passion

A note on the aesthetics of basic research

chapter 3|16 pages

Pragmatic entrepreneurs and institutionalized scholars?

On the path-dependent nature of entrepreneurship scholarship

chapter 5|23 pages

Portfolio entrepreneurial households

Extending the individual and single opportunity focus

part II|145 pages

Dissensus challenges

chapter 8|18 pages

Engaged scholarship

Taking responsibility for the politics of method mediation

chapter 9|37 pages

Is there still a Heffalump in the room?

Examining paradigms in historical entrepreneurship research

chapter 11|40 pages

Towards an understanding of effectual learning

Exploring four innovations in entrepreneurship education