Measuring Entrepreneurial Businesses: Current Knowledge and Challenges brings together and unprecedented group of economists, data providers, and data analysts to discuss research on the state of entrepreneurship and to address the challenges in understanding this dynamic part of the economy. Each chapter addresses the challenges of measuring entrepreneurship and how entrepreneurial firms contribute to economies and standards of living. The book also investigates heterogeneity in entrepreneurs, challenges experienced by entrepreneurs over time, and how much less we know than we think about entrepreneurship given data limitations. This volume will be a groundbreaking first serious look into entrepreneurship in the NBER's Income and Wealth series.

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.

Entrepreneurship is largely considered to be a positive force, driving venture creation and economic growth. Critical Perspectives on Entrepreneurship questions the accepted norms and dominant assumptions of scholarship on the matter, and reveals how they can actually obscure important questions of identity, ideology and inequality. The book’s distinguished authors and editors explore how entrepreneurship study can privilege certain forms of economic action, whilst labelling other, more collective forms of organization and exchange as problematic. Demystifying the archetypal vision of the white, male entrepreneur, this book gives voice to other entrepreneurial subjectivities and engages with the tensions, paradoxes and ambiguities at the heart of the topic. This challenging collection seeks to further the momentum for alternate analyses of the field, and to promote the growing voice of critical entrepreneurship studies. It is a useful tool for researchers, advanced students and policy-makers.

Entrepreneurship can, at times, seem like a veritable jungle where finding one's way can prove to be difficult. This book functions as a map locating the most important issues: those where an acceptable consensus already exists, and those that remain open to discussion. In so doing, we have presented the accounts of distinguished explorers in their own words.

The discussion around whether entrepreneurship can be taught is becoming obsolete as the number of entrepreneurship courses, specializations and degrees is rising at an unprecedented rate all over the world and the demand for entrepreneurial education teachers or instructors is constantly growing. The global community of entrepreneurial education proponents is enthusiastic about the possibility of spreading the idea of entrepreneurship, as it is believed to benefit societies and economies in addition to influencing human development on an individual level. The fervour is nurtured by public policies and the development of an enterprising culture in the public discourse. In this discourse, entrepreneurship is treated as a panacea for numerous social and economic problems. This book is a solid reference point for all who are interested in conducting research on entrepreneurial education or engaged in teaching entrepreneurship. It is a compendium of knowledge about entrepreneurial education as a research field, seen from the perspective of the last four decades, its complete contemporary history. It reviews the progress of the field from the outset to the present in terms of its socio-economic context, changes in the academic community, but also its research focus and methodological development. This uniquely comprehensive book is a resource of both knowledge on entrepreneurial education research and inspiration for future studies within the field. This timely and relevant book provides practical insights for educators when developing their teaching practice and will be of interest to entrepreneurship educators and entrepreneurship education researchers.

This volume discusses the challenge of dealing with complexity in entrepreneurship, innovation and technology research. Businesses as well as entire economies are increasingly being confronted by widespread complex systems. Fields such as entrepreneurship and innovation cannot ignore this reality, especially with their inherent links to diverse research fields and interdisciplinary methods. However, most methods that allow more detailed analyses of complex problems are either neglected in mainstream research or are, at best, still emerging. Against this backdrop, this book provides a forum for the discussion of emergent and neglected methods in the context of complexity in entrepreneurship, innovation and technology research, and also acts as an inspiration for academics across related disciplines to engage more in complexity research.

. . . this is a single-authored book; a series of academic papers (some original, some fairly recently published), neatly set around a unifying theme and tied into a comprehensive argument. . . once you have shared Davidsson s insights, stumblings, joys, and humor over some 240 pages, it feels as if he were part of your family. The book sets off with a very clear and helpful introduction that lays out the entrepreneurship phenomenon . . . This book is value adding for a fairly wide academic audience: essentially all those interested in diverse areas of entrepreneurship and innovation, or in questions of methodology, research design and interpretation of, ultimately, any complex, fast paced behavioural and social realities. It does not give us all the answers, thank heavens, but it certainly asks some excellent questions. . . the novice scholar, will find some welcome foothold and guidance. . . this book is simply fun to read; when could you last say that of a research methodology book? Jacqueline Fendt, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research Unquestionably, Per Davidsson can be considered a leading voice of authority on the study of entrepreneurship as an academic discipline. . . From the initial introduction through to the latter discussions, one aspect of this textbook that immediately makes itself apparent to the reader is Davidsson s markedly personal and deeply engaging writing style. The Entrepreneurship Research Challenge is notably distinct from many of the generic business research methods texts in that it does not attempt to portray an objective toolbox of methodological choices. Instead, the style is such that the reader feels that Davidsson truly wishes for his audience to learn from his unique experiences, opinions and even mistakes. . . the practical advice provided is both insightful and useful. . . this text is not simply about how to go through the motions of the research process. Instead, it makes a very well reasoned attempt to form a basis for the discipline as a whole as well as to address methods to overcome unique challenges while promoting research output that is useful. For these reasons it should be considered essential reading for any entrepreneurship scholar, and in particular, for those at the early stages of their research career. Russell Matthews, International Small Business Journal Entrepreneurship is an emerging, dynamic and to a considerable extent, unpredictable phenomenon. Thus, it makes for a challenging research subject. In this book, one of the most experienced empiricists in the field has collected some of his most important ideas on how improved conceptualization and research design can make this challenge more manageable. Per Davidsson addresses questions such as: What precisely is entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship research? What unique contribution can it make compared with research in other fields? Conversely, how can scholars with different disciplinary backgrounds best contribute to the study of entrepreneurship? What does the emergent and highly diverse nature of entrepreneurship imply for research design? And what is required from entrepreneurship researchers and practitioners in order for the research to make strong contributions to business and policy practice? This comprehensive, in-depth account of how the emergence of new entrepreneurial activity can be studied will be warmly welcomed by researchers and academics in the areas of entrepreneurship, innovation and methodology and research design.