The Evolving Domain of Entrepreneurship Research

Bo Carlsson, Pontus Braunerhjelm, Maureen McKelvey, Christer Olofsson, Lars Persson () and Håkan Ylinenpää
Additional contact information
Bo Carlsson: Case Western Reserve University
Maureen McKelvey: Gothenburg University
Christer Olofsson: University of Agriculture
Lars Persson: Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)
Håkan Ylinenpää: Luleå Technical University

No 948, Working Paper Series from Research Institute of Industrial Economics

Abstract: Research on entrepreneurship has flourished in recent years and is evolving rapidly. This paper explores the history of entrepreneurship research, how the research domain has evolved, and its current status as an academic field. The need to concretize these issues stems partly from a general interest to define the current research domain, partly from the more specific tasks confronting the prize committee of the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research. Entrepreneurship has developed in many sub-fields within several disciplines – primarily economics, management/business administration, sociology, psychology, economic and cultural anthropology, business history, strategy, marketing, finance, and geography – representing a variety of research traditions, perspectives, and methods. We present an analytical framework that organizes our thinking about the domain of entrepreneurship research, by specifying elements, levels of analysis and the process/context. An overview is provided of where the field stands today and how it is positioned relative to the existing disciplines and new research fields upon which it draws. Areas needed for future progress are highlighted, particularly the need for a rigorous dynamic theory of entrepreneurship that relates entrepreneurial activity to economic growth and human welfare. Moreover, applied work based on more careful design as well as on theoretical models yielding more credible and robust estimates seems also highly warranted.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship research; Evolution; Academic disciplines; Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B00 L26 M13 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2013-01-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa and nep-his
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (59)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ifn.se/wfiles/wp/wp948.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The evolving domain of entrepreneurship research (2013)
Working Paper: The Evolving Domain of Entrepreneurship Research (2012)
Working Paper: The Evolving Domain of Entrepreneurship Research (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0948

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper Series from Research Institute of Industrial Economics Research Institute of Industrial Economics, Box 55665, SE-102 15 Stockholm, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Elisabeth Gustafsson ().