Pioneers in Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research

In this chapter I will focus on the roots of entrepreneurship and small business research. I will start by discussing some of the early thoughts about entrepreneurship and the introduction of entrepreneurship into economic literature (section 1). Joseph Schumpeter is an important figure in economic research on entrepreneurship, and his work is presented in section 2, followed by a discussion on the post-Schumpeterian development in economic science in section 3. Entrepreneurship and small business research gradually changed from being an economic discipline to a research area within behavioral science. The contribution of David McClelland is presented in a section in which I discuss the stream of research that attempts to answer the “who is an entrepreneur” question (section 4). In recent years entrepreneurship and small business research has also moved into the area of management science, as described in section 5. The chapter concludes with a discussion in section 6 in which I relate entrepreneurship and small business research to the development of society.

In chapter 2 I presented some pioneers of entrepreneurship and small business research who have been of significant importance for the development of knowledge about entrepreneurship and small business. We have also seen the strong historical relationship between the economic development of society and the scientific interest in entrepreneurship and small firms. In this chapter, I will present and discuss some ideas about the development of entrepreneurship and small business research since the beginning of the 1980s – the time when the field started to emerge. The chapter will mainly describe the development in a US context, with a strong focus on entrepreneurship as opposed to small business research. The development of the field can be divided into cognitive aspects of research, which involve the substance of research, the content of the theories, the logic of the methods employed, and social aspects of research, which deal with the academic community and the organization of research (Crane, 1972; Becher, 1989). Section 1 describes the “social turmoil” that characterized the 1970s and that triggered an increasing interest in the economy in general as well as among researchers. Section 2 treats the social development that has taken place within entrepreneurship and small business research especially in the 1990s, which witnessed a large increase in the number of researchers and the creation of an infrastructure within the field. Section 3 focuses on the cognitive development within entrepreneurship and small business research, including the advances in knowledge and methodology in the field during the last decades. During the emergence of entrepreneurship and small business as an academic field, several “struggles” took place that have had a major influence – and in some instances have impeded this development. These controversies will be discussed in section 4.

Chapter three presented the development of entrepreneurship and small business research from a mainly US perspective. Compared to Europe, American society is more characterized by entrepreneuria1 ideology, and the international dissemination of entrepreneurship research has been dominated by US scholars, and therefore it is only natural that many of the works on the history of entrepreneurship and small business research reflect this bias. As a consequence, most of the history of entrepreneurship and small business research has been written by US researchers, for US researchers and about US research — it is an American story. Nevertheless, entrepreneurship and small business research in Europe has a long tradition, and Europe can in many ways be regarded as the birthplace of theoretical entrepreneurship studies (see Chapter 2), although for a long period entrepreneurship was ignored in policy and research. However, in the late 20th century, entrepreneurship and small business re-emerged on the political agenda across Europe, and during the 1980s and especially in the 1990s developed a foothold within European research. Entrepreneurship and small business research is to a great degree international, exhibiting the same positive development in Europe as in other parts of the world — not least in Australia. In this chapter I will therefore first present a description of European entrepreneurship and small business research. This is followed by a section about the development of entrepreneurship and small business research in Australia. Finally, some reflections and comparisons are made regarding the research in Europe, Australia and the US. Recent Years have witnessed a trend toward a greater interest in the development of entrepreneurship and small business research in the US as well as in Europe and Australia, and the following review will describe this dynamic development.

The previous chapters (Chapters 3 and 4) described the growing interest in entrepreneurship and small firms among international researchers in the late 1970s and especially in the 1980s. A number of scholars observed the prevailing tendencies in society—with an increased focus on industrial renewal, innovation and entrepreneurship—and in various ways these pioneers stimulated an interest in entrepreneurship and small firms among their colleagues around the world. Who then were these pioneers? In this chapter, some of them will be presented. Naturally, views differ concerning the individuals and events that have been influential in the development of the field, and this presentation is a subjective evaluation. However, I have attempted to cover a broad range of topics within the field including the pioneers who built an infrastructure (section 1) as well as those involved in entrepreneurship and small business research (section 2). Since 1996 the Swedish Foundation for Small Business Research (FSF) and the Swedish Business Development Agency (NUTEK) have presented the International Award for Small Business Research to scholars within entrepreneurship and/or small business whose research has contributed substantially to increased knowledge and understanding of entrepreneurship and/or small businesses. The FSF-NUTEK International Award will be presented in section 3 together with a brief overview of the first recipients of the Award—recipients that can all be regarded as pioneers in the field of entrepreneurship and small business research. These pioneers will then be described in Part II and Part III of the book.

David Storey is perhaps the most prominent exponent of small business research in Great Britain — research that is strongly policy oriented — and it is primarily David Storey’s great interest in and emphasis on policy related knowledge that merits attention. Storey’s research consists of robust, high-quality empirical work, which includes detailed literature reviews, a carefully thought out methodology, in-depth reflection and interesting conclusions. In particular, his critical reviews of earlier research deserve attention along with his ability to synthesize knowledge and to make complex phenomena easily understandable. In this way, Storey has provided a more balanced picture of the importance of small businesses for societal development as well as making small business research more credible.

Zoltan Acs And David Audretsch — Discoverers Of The Role Of Small Firms In Innovation And Creators Of The Small Business Economics Research Field

Giacomo Becattini has made several important contributions to our knowledge about “industrial districts” based on Marshall’s reasoning in his works Economics of Industry (1879), Principle of Economics in 1890 and Industry and Trade published in 1921, all of which focus on the importance of proximity for small firms in order to achieve external economies of scale. In his seminal article “From the industrial ‘sector’ to the industrial ‘district’”, published in Italian in 1979 and in English 1989, he introduced the concept of “industrial districts” and rediscovered the Marshallian concept in an Italian context. A major contribution to the understanding of industrial districts was Becattini’s strong emphasis on the role of the cultural and historical background of the districts, and he was the first to point out that a skill that appears abundant in a specific area may be scarce on the world market — for example, people who have been manufacturing clothes for centuries tend to possess a kind of “clothing culture and knowledge” that is of great significance. Thus, Becattini extended Marshall’s analysis of the purely economic effects of agglomeration to a broader perspective, to include the social, cultural and institutional foundations of local industrial growth. He also introduced the idea of “embeddedness” of the local industrial structure as a key analytical concept in understanding industrial districts. However, Becattini is more interested in using the concept of “sense of belonging”, which is a more active concept. In order to have a sense of belonging you not only have to share a vision of the future but also act accordingly — as opposed to “embeddedness”, which implies a more passive approach.

Since the 1960s, Arnold Cooper has been one of the leading entrepreneurship scholars and can be considered as a pioneer in strategic management as well as in entrepreneurship research. His pioneering work on spin-offs in Silicon Valley and new technology-based firms has significantly enhanced our understanding of entrepreneurial phenomena. Cooper can also be said to be the archetype of an entrepreneurship researcher, as his research is wide-ranging, and for having attempted to answer many of the fundamental questions that define the research field. His contributions are not merely empirical but also methodological — he was for example one of the first researchers to carry out longitudinal studies of a large number of companies — and he has also made a whole range of theoretical contributions. Arnold Cooper’s strength is his ability to combine a strong theoretical base with good empirical research. Furthermore, he was one of the first entrepreneurship researchers to have his work published in the leading management journals, which is an indication of the quality of his research.

Ian MacMillan has given legitimacy to the field of entrepreneurship. With the establishment of entrepreneurship as an academic subject at a renowned business school such as Wharton School of Business, the research field acquired the necessary legitimacy, thus making it possible for other universities and business schools in the US to follow suite. This attracted a number of talented young researchers and research students to the field, and especially to Ian MacMillan’s Snider Entrepreneurial Center at Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia, where MacMillan has created an international research environment within the field of entrepreneurship.

Howard Aldrich’s work is characterized by true scientific curiosity and a theoretical strength that is unique in entrepreneurship research. Aldrich has been true to his theoretical framework ever since he started to develop his thoughts around the evolutionary approach, an approach that, for many years, has underpinned most of his research and demonstrated the potential of a strong conceptual framework in the area of entrepreneurship and small business issues. He has proved that it is possible to achieve a far-reaching understanding of entrepreneurship by means of a consistent theoretical language. Based on the evolutionary approach, Howard Aldrich has not only made significant contributions in the area of formation and development of new firms, but also in other sub-topics of entrepreneurship such as the role of ethnicity, networks, and gender in the formation and growth of organizations.

In the book I have tried to provide a historical-doctrinal review of the development of entrepreneurship and small business research as well as presenting some of the pioneers, who have been influential in the creation and development of the field. I am aware that this review tends to mirror my own subjective view of the development of the field, and the pioneers selected for inclusion in the book are those who have received the FSF-NUTEK International Award for Small Business Research — which may reflect the bias of the scientific committee of the Swedish Foundation for Small Business Research (FSF). However, the first recipients of the FSF-NUTEK International Award are unquestionably pioneers in the field of entrepreneurship and small business research.