Entrepreneurship theory: the new challenges
The paper deals with the current state and the prospects of the entrepreneurship theory. In the last
decade some debates around core questions of the filed occurred. First, the question of legitimacy: is
the entrepreneurship research a separate field, or rather a subfield of research in the more traditional
areas? The answer is that the entrepreneurship research can be ’unified’ as a field only in terms of the
phenomenon of “emergence of new economic activity”. Hence, not all aspects – for instance, related to
small and new business - amounts to entrepreneurship, but several phenomena in other areas are
entrepreneurial and can be subject of entrepreneurship research.
This approach has a tremendous importance, because if it is so, entrepreneurship scholarship has the
potential to deal with issues that are central to the development in the world: the development of the
poor world (McMullen), the preservation of the earth’s resources (Shepherd & Patzelt) and a method
for understanding human behavior (Sarasvathy & Venkataraman).
Second, a discussion about the concordance between conceptual definitions of key phenomena and
empirical observations was of importance for the field: it is easier to study entrepreneurship in terms of
the creation of new organizations (Gartner, 1988) than as the creation of new economic activity
(Davidsson & Wiklund, 2001) or opportunity discovery and exploitation (Shane & Venkataraman, 2000)
because organizations are more conducive to observation and measurement than ‘economic activity’ or
‘opportunity’? There are voices that more substantive becomes the entrepreneurial behavior (Dimov);
and that entrepreneurship should be investigated as a method of human problem solving (Sarasvathy
and Venkataraman).
In our paper, we argue that entrepreneurship theory as an area on its own is a field characterized by a
multidisciplinary and dealing with sources of growth in market economies (innovation etc.); reasons and
factors influencing entrepreneurial behavior (alertness, need for achievement, push and pull factors
etc.); modes of new venture establishment (start-up vs. intrapreneurship); societal impact on
entrepreneurial action, and vice versa. The fundamental questions in entrepreneurship research now
are: "how, why, and when do entrepreneurial firms discover and exploit opportunities?"
Such an approach enables researchers to intervene in subjects outside of the narrowly defined
commercial area like social entrepreneurship (Austin, Stevenson, & Wei-Skillern, 2006; Mair & Marti,
2006) and its impact on the design of relations between the State and society; institutional
entrepreneurship (Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006; Maguire, Hardy & Lawrence, 2004) and its impact on
the role of traditional sources of institutions building (State, Civil society) etc.
Moreover, the paper deals with some unavoidable trends in the future entrepreneurship research
resulting from the widening of the geography (former Socialist economies, the South and the East) and
involving into entrepreneurial action people with totally different set of resources, capitals, and societal
norms.
As regards the traditional (Anglo-Saxon) world of entrepreneurship, there are such new subjects of
research like ageing and improving wellbeing and increasing the amount of accessible financial sources
(‘olderpreneurs’); female entrepreneurship in some developing countries – the single possibility to
become independent from the man and family; informal gender driven networks and chains. Then, the
development of modern technologies, especially IT, opens niches for less educated persons with high
level of alertness to start-educated but possessing alertness individuals. Last but not least, the
post-modern context of the freelance brings many freelancers to start a real business (longitudinal
studies of the development of self-employees to entrepreneurs will become more important than
previously).
Future challenges on the side of the research design and methodic in the entrepreneurship research are
summarized in the paper as following:
1) more client orientation: who are the clients? (students, academics, practitioners, politicians);
2) more longitudinal studies : quick success orientation should be left aside;
3) more comparative studies: establishing of international research consortia will become important as
the international entrepreneurship research is no more a sake of individual researchers! (GEM, PSEDI
etc. are the first signs of such cross-national research teams);
4) more good qualitative research: the researchers should have skills and ability to provide cases, panel
studies etc.;
5) more theory building: good multidisciplinary education as the basis of broad thinking will be in need.
The paper argues that not only the subjects but also the methods of exploration should change in the
future perspective: the ‘big data’ and ‘single source’ methods of marketing research will penetrate
academic fields, including entrepreneurship research. Hence, less pilot studies, but more collaboration
with different commercial providers of big data (on consumer behavior, households financial strategies,
attitude to advertising etc.) will bring new insight into the entrepreneurial action and respective adults’
behavior, its motives and constraints.
In the final part, the paper gives a short summary of the current problems and the institutional and
organizational conditions to successfully overwhelm the future challenges in the field of
entrepreneurship research.
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