Hans Landström
Institute of Economic Research/CIRCLE
Lund University, Sweden
Email: hans.landstrom@fek.lu.se

1.
Some of the best and most influential works were written in early days of entrepreneurship research, of which many are intellectual achievements that are stimulating to read.
2.
It is a question of knowledge accumulation
 not ”invent the wheel” everytime starting a new study.
3.
Today we can see an increased interest in a theoretical development of the field, and we are borrowing of concepts and theories from other research fields …
 and when borrowing from other fields we need to understand the roots and assumptions on which these concepts and theories are based.
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström

1870-1940
Economics Era
1940-1970 1970 -
Social Science Management
Era Studies Era
1870 1900
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström
1950 2000

Integrated within main stream disciplines
…
1.
No need to reinvent the wheel.
2.
Entrepreneurship research is required to meet the quality criteria of the discipline (academic legitimacy).
Liberation from main stream disciplines …
1.
Complex phenomena (existing theories not always optimal).
2.
Research community in entrepreneurship (tacit knowledge).
3.
Focus on the most central questions of entrepreneurship.
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström

1870-1940
Economics Era
1940-1970 1970 -
Social Science Management
Era Studies Era
1870 1900
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström
1950 2000

Cognitive dimension of research
Including a general delimitation of and background knowledge about the study object as well as accepted methods and ways of reasoning.
Social dimension of research
Expressed in terms of organized forums for communication between researchers within the field, role models, and educational programs that provide and define the minimum competence required of researchers within the field.
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström

Cognitive dimension
Take off phase Growth phase Searching maturation
Social dimension
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström

• Schumpeter (1942)
”… what we have got to accept is that the large-scale establishment has come to be the most powerful engine of progress.” (p 106)
• Galbraith (1967)
Provided an important rationale for an economic policy oriented toward the large corporations. He argued that innovative activities as well as improvements in products and processes were most effeciently carried out in the context of large corporations.
• Servan-Schreiber (1968)
Warned Europeans to be aware of The American Challenge in the form of the ”dynamism, organization, innovation, and the boldness that characterize the giant American corporation.”
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström

- Dynamics in society (… change in industrial structure)
- Economic problems (… unemployment)
- Change in fashion (… ”small is beautiful”)
- Increased political interest (… Keynes’ ideas questioned)
Development in society
- Studies supporting the prevailing trends
- Data bases and data capacity
Cognitive aspects
Macro-level analysis
Small business economics
- Demand from students
- External donors
- Support programs
Social aspects
Micro-level analysis
Management studies
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström

Birch’s contribution was that he realized that no data were available to resolve various questions related to job creation, and he utilized and reshaped existing data in a way that they could be used for longitudinal analyses
(Dun & Bradstreet data base 1969-1976).
• The majority of new jobs were created with 20 or less employees – often independent and young firms (thus, it was not the large firms that created new jobs).
• The report (54 pages) was sold in twelve copies, but its influence was enormous (among policy makers as well as research community).
• Considerable debate, but many of the findings have proved very robust and have been verified in many later studies (Storey, Kirchhoff, Reynolds,
Davidsson).
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström

Pioneers – macro-level analysis (small business economics)
Job generation: David Birch, David Storey, Catherine Armington, Marjorie
Dynamics of industries:
Innovation:
Regional development:
Odle, David Evans, etc.
Richard Nelson, Sidney Winter, William Brock, David Evans
Robert Lucas, Linda Leighton, Bruce Kirchhoff, etc.
Zoltan Acs, David Audretsch, Bo Carlsson, Roy Rothwell, etc.
Giacomo Becattini, Sebastiano Brusco, Werner Sengenberger,
Charles Sabel, David Storey, Ray Oakey, etc.
Pioneers – micro-level analysis (management studies)
Allan Gibb, David Kirby, Bengt Johannisson, Arnold Cooper, Charles Hofer,
Jeffry Timmons, William Bygrave, Ian MacMillan, Jeffrey Covin, Dennis Slevin,
William Gartner, Howard Stevenson, Sue Birley, William Wetzel, Edward
Roberts, Jim Curran, John Stanworth, Robert Hisrich … and many many more …
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström

Researchers picked up where social scientists left of
 searching for entrepreneurial traits and characteristics (anchored in McClelland, Collins, et al., Smith)
• Low entry field
•
Discovery of a new phenomenon
Churchill (1992) made an analogy to the six blind men and the elephant:
It was an unstructured exploration of the elephant
– the researchers discovered that this animal was different, that it was composed of a number of unusual parts, and that it was quite large.
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström

Individualism
– the research community was small and fragmented
Emerging ”arenas” for entrepreneurship scholars
• Professional organizations
ICSB 1977 (1956), ECSB 1988, Academy of Management Entrepreneurship
Division 1987 (1974)
• Academic conferences
Rencontres de St-Gall 1948, and ICSB 1956, UK Small Firm Policy and Research
Conference 1979, Nordic Conference on Small Business 1980, Babson Conference
1981, RENT Conference 1987
• Scientific journals
Explorations in Entrepreneurial History 1949, Internationales Gewerbearchive
1952, Journal of Small Business Management 1955, American Journal of Small
Business 1977 (ETP 1988), European Small Business Journal 1982 (today ISBM),
Journal of Business Venturing 1985, Entrepreneurship & Regional Development
1989, Small Business Economics 1989
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström

Searching maturation
Cognitive dimension
Social dimension
Take off phase
Explorative driven
Practical orientation
Pragmatic methodology
Strong links to society
Individualism
Growth phase
Pioneers
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström

8000
6000
4000
2000
0
16000
14000
12000
10000
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström
Publication Year
Cum No Pub

Systematic shift from an interest in the entrepreneur as an individual
(entrepreneurial traits) to contextual and processual aspects.
William Gartner, 1985, A conceptual framework for describing the phenomenon of new venture creation,
Academy of Management Review .
William Gartner, 1988, Who is the entrepreneur? is the wrong question,
American Journal of Small Business .
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström

(Bygrave & Hofer, 1991)
Traditional focus New focus
Characteristics Characteristics of the entrepreneur of the process
Key questions: - Who becomes entrepreneurs?
(un)successful entrepreneurs?
- What’s involved in perceived opportunities effeciently?
- Why do people - What are the key tasks in successfully become entrepreneurs? establishing new organizations?
- What characterize - How are these tasks different from managing ongoing companies?
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström

• Organized forums for communication (eg. 44 English-language refereed scientific journals).
• Role models and ideals (eg. 277 endowed chairs in the US).
• Educations programs in entrepreneurship (eg. more than 2,200 courses in entrepreneurship and small business in the US, and an increased number of
Ph D programs). (Katz, 2003).
Conclusion
A rather advanced social structure for entrepreneurship research, and probably the social dimension has developed faster than the cognitive dimension of entrepreneurship research (descriptive and fragmented – potpurri of research [Low, 2001], mosaic of issues [Zahra, 2005],
” we are getting more pieces of the puzzle but no picture is emerging
”
[Koppl & Minniti, 2003]).
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström

Cognitive dimension
Social dimension
Take off phase
Explorative driven
Growth phase
Phenomenon and empirical driven fragmentation
Policy orientation
Practical orientation
Pragmatic methodology
Improved empirical methodology
Strong links to society
Individualism
Pioneers
Strong links to the topic
Social infrastructure
(Bounded)multidisciplinary
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström
Searching maturation

Sankaran Venkataraman and Scott Shane
Entrepreneurship is a scholarly field that seeks to understand how opportunities to bring into existence
”future” goods and services are discovered, created, and exploited, by whom, and with what consequences.
( Academy of Management Review , 2000)
Domain discussion
1. Domain approach
2. Integrative approach
3. Multi-research approach
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström

1. A realization that entrepreneurship is a complex, heterogeneous and multi-level phenomenon
– Contextualizing entrepreneurship
+ topics (corporate, social, etc.)
+ spatial (different countries)
– Specific knowledge (Cornelius et al., 2006) and specific language (Karlsson, 2008)
– From fragmentation to specialization  emerging ”research circles” (ETP, 2006)
2. The return of economics and psychology (cognition)
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström

350
300
250
200
450
400
150
100
50
0
1950 1960 1970 1980
Publication year
1990 2000 2010
Business & Management
Economics
Sociology
Psychology
133 other subfields
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström

Cognitive dimension
Social dimension
Take off phase
Explorative driven
Growth phase
Phenomenon and empirical driven fragmentation
Policy orientation Practical orientation
Pragmatic methodology
Strong links to society
Individualism
Pioneers
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström
Improved empirical methodology
Strong links to the topic
Social infrastructure
(Bounded)multidisplinary
Searching maturation
Stronger theory orientation specialization
Knowledge orientation
Widening of methodological approach
Strong links to the domain
Cognitive development
Emerging ”tribes”

1. Influential works and intellectual achievements
 role models
Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research
1996 David Birch 2001 Zoltan Acs
David Audretsch
1997 Arnold Cooper 2002 Giacomo
Becattini
Charles Sabel
2006
2007
Israel Kirzner
The Diana
Project
1998 David Storey 2003 William Baumol 2008 Bengt
Johannisson
1999 Ian MacMillan 2004 Paul Reynolds 2009 Scott Shane
2000 Howard
Aldrich
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström
2005 William Gartner

2. Knowledge accumulation
•
Empirical and descriptive knowledge that help us understand the phenomenon (the importance of entrepreneurship, the complexity and heterogeneity of the entrepreneurship, etc.), and it is a necessary step in order to build theory effectively, i.e. a deep understanding of the issues and practices involved improves the validity, sophistication and power of theoretical models developed.
• Shows the importance of relevance in research. Early scholars (the pioneers) had a clear connection to entrepreneurs and to society
(practice and policy).
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström

3. Increased theoretical interest in entrepreneurship research
•
Theory-driven methodologies/sampling (Davidsson, 2008)
 Test theories not only describe reality.
• Borrow and invent (Zahra, 2007)

Good groundwork
 when borrowing from other fields we need to understand the roots and assumptions on which these concepts and theories are based.
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström

Learn how to write … write, write, write!
What you write is important (publications and citations more and more important)
• Make your research recognized through publications, and learn how to publish
- create your own ”voice” in papers and articles
- choose your ”conversation group” and journals (SCI)
- make your publications easy to access (home page).
… but who you know is almost as important! (researchers form social networks and within these networks theories are developed in dialogue, through mutual citations)
• Extend your publishing experience through collaboration with other researchers
(note least the ”elite” within the field).
• Create a social network
- peers: use for review, but also in order to increase the number of citations
- seniors: personal communication (make yourself ”known”)
- general: visibility (conferences/seminars/etc).
• Sell your ideas and publications (marketing).
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström

More about the history of entrepreneurship research
Landström, Hans, 2005, Pioneers in
Entrepreneurship and Small Business
Research , Yew York: Springer
ISBN 0-387-23601-5
Lunds universitet / Hans Landström