Researching Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is a phenomenon of tremendous societal importance. It is also an elusive phenomenon, and researching entrepreneurship is therefore fun, fascinating—and frustrating at times. In Researching Entrepreneurship, one of the most highly recognized entrepreneurship scholars shares in a personal and readable way his rich experience and ideas on how entrepreneurship can or should be researched. After a comprehensive treatment of entrepreneurship as societal phenomenon and scholarly domain, the core chapters of the book discuss design, sampling, operationalization and analysis issues on several levels of analysis: individual, venture, firm, industry, region and nation. The author provides numerous examples of problems and solutions from real research projects, as well as experienced-based suggestions for further improvements in future work.

The book is targeted primarily at doctoral students and other (relative) newcomers to the field of entrepreneurship research. However, taking a fresh, reflective perspective and looking beyond research conventions, it should provide potential for inspiration and food for thought also for experienced entrepreneurship researchers. Moreover, while the examples are taken from entrepreneurship research, the book provides a unique "experienced empirical researcher" (rather than "textbook method expert") treatment of issues that are of equal relevance across the social sciences. This goes for topics such as the role of theory; qualitative vs. quantitative research; validity checking; statistical inference, and replication.

Per Davidsson is Professor in Entrepreneurship at Brisbane Graduate School of Management, QUT, Australia, and Jönköping International Business School, Sweden. He is also Chair of the Research Committee of the Entrepreneurship Division of the (American) Academy of Management.