Entrepreneurship is a growing field of research, attracting researchers from many different disciplines including economics, sociology, psychology, and management. The concept of entrepreneurship, and research in the field, is becoming institutionalized, increasingly oriented by influential trends, theories and methods, following the mainstream and being shaped accordingly.

The objective of this book is to move beyond mainstream approaches and assumptions which are dominating the field, and to raise questions about the nature and process of entrepreneurship research. Over...

Family business is the most prominent form of business organization, and its importance to the global economy cannot be under-estimated. Until recently, the impact of the family on entrepreneurial firms has been under-researched, leading to a conceptual gap between the two areas of study, and an underestimation of the contribution of family systems to entrepreneurial success.

Starting from the consideration that family is an intimate and essential aspect of entrepreneurship, this book considers connections between family, family members, entrepreneurial behavior, family...

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...

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...

Entrepreneurship research attracts scholars from a wide spectrum of disciplines. Yet the field is multi-paradigmatic and lacking consensus, even on the nature of core entrepreneurial phenomena. What is recognized is that it is characterized by dynamic and emergent processes - a complex interplay between actors, processes and contexts. As a result, post-positivistic approaches are gaining traction in a field long dominated by positivistic philosophies.

This book reflects on the fundamental philosophical basis of entrepreneurship scholarship. It explores the shifting meanings...