Int. J. Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Vol. 11, No. 2, 2010
105
The future of entrepreneurship research: results of a
research workshop with invited speakers and
discussants at the International Council for Small
Business World Conference in Halifax
Louis Jacques Filion*
International Workshop Organiser and Coordinator,
Rogers-J.A. Bombardier Chair of Entrepreneurship,
HEC Montréal, 3000 Ch. Côte Ste-Catherine,
Montréal, QC H3T 2A7, Canada
E-mail: louisjacques.filion@hec.ca
*Corresponding author
Leo-Paul Dana
Invited Speaker,
University of Canterbury and GSCM Montpellier,
Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand
E-mail: leo.dana@canterbury.ac.nz
Pierre-André Julien
Invited Speaker,
Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières,
Institut de recherche sur les PME,
P.O. Box 500, Trois-Rivières, Québec, G9H 5H7, Canada
E-mail: Pierre-Andre.Julien@uqtr.ca
José M. Veciana
Invited Speaker,
Department of Business Economics,
University of Barcelona,
Building B, Campus of UAB,
08193 Bellaterra (Cerdanyola Del Valles), Barcelona Spain
E-mail: jose.veciana@uab.es
Tor Aase Johannessen
Discussant,
NHH, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration,
Helleveien 30, NO – 5045 Bergen, Norway
E-mail: tor.johannessen@nhh.no
Copyright © 2010 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
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Matthias G. Raith
Discussant,
Department of Economics,
Otto-Von-Guericke-University of Magdeburg,
P.O. Box 41 20, 39016 Magdeburg, Germany
E-mail: raith@ovgu.de
Abstract: This publication presents a summary of the presentations made in a
workshop on June 23rd, 2008 at the ICSB World Conference held in Halifax,
Canada. It also presents the highlights of the discussion that followed these
presentations. The participants exchanged on the need to develop more
theoretical approaches in entrepreneurship and suggested ways to work in that
direction.
Keywords: entrepreneurship;
entrepreneurship.
entrepreneurship
research;
future
of
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Filion, L.J., Dana, L-P.,
Julien, P-A., Veciana, J.M., Johannessen, T.A. and Raith, M.G. (2010)
‘The future of entrepreneurship research: results of a research workshop with
invited speakers and discussants at the International Council for Small Business
World Conference in Halifax’, Int. J. Entrepreneurship and Small Business,
Vol. 11, No. 2, pp.105–120.
Biographical notes: Louis Jacques Filion is a Rogers-J.A. Bombardier
Professor of Entrepreneurship at HEC Montreal. His research interests include
the activity systems of entrepreneurs, the visionary process, new venture
creation and technological entrepreneurship.
Leo-Paul Dana holds a PhD from HEC Montreal. He has been tenured at the
University of Canterbury since 1999 and is currently on Study Leave at GSCM
Montpellier. He formerly served as a Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship at
INSEAD and Deputy Director of the International Business MBA Program at
Nanyang Business School, in Singapore.
Pierre-André Julien has a PhD in Economic Science (Leuven, Belgium). He is a
Professor Emeritus in Small Business Economy at the Université du Québec à
Trois-Rivières. He was an Editor of the Revue Internationale PME from 1988
to 2005. He acts as a Consultant for SMEs Committee of the OECD in Paris
since 1989. He has published more than 100 articles in the most important
academic journal and is the author or co-author of 22 books on small business,
as the last one: A Theory of Local Entrepreneurship in the Knowledge Economy
(2008) translated also in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and
Catalan.
José M. Veciana is a Professor Emeritus at the Universidad Autónoma de
Barcelona. He holds a PhD from the University of Frankfurt/Main, Germany
and a PhD from the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, where he has
been a Professor of Business Administration (strategy, organisation and
entrepreneurship) since 1970. He has held several other positions at that
university, including Dean of the Faculty, Head of the Business Administration
Department, Director of the Doctoral Programme, and others. In addition, he
has been a Professor at the University of Würzburg, Germany and the Director
of the Marketing Institute at the ESADE Business School, Barcelona.
The future of entrepreneurship research
107
Tor Aase Johannessen is an Academic Director CEMS at NHH and an
Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship and Innovations. He received his MSc
from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration and his
MBA from the Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University.
His research focuses on strategic decisions in small ventures and use of
marketing theory in new ventures.
Matthias Raith holds the Chair of Entrepreneurship at the University of
Magdeburg in Germany. His research focuses on new approaches to venture
creation and facilitation with methods of decision and negotiation analysis.
Introduction
Entrepreneurship practices and entrepreneurship research are evolving quickly and the
number of developing areas in entrepreneurship is increasing rapidly. However, research
appears to find it hard to follow practice. For instance, we know that a higher percentage
of new businesses are started through partnerships every year, but there is relatively little
research on the topic of partnerships and few textbooks and courses approach
entrepreneurship from a collective standpoint. In addition, we know the importance of the
role of entrepreneurs and the private sector in supporting entrepreneurship development,
but there is very little research on philanthropic entrepreneurship and the role of
philanthropy in supporting entrepreneurship. Similarly, there is relatively little research
on social entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship in non-profit sectors.
This workshop was set up to discuss and exchange on the future of our field. What are
the areas in which research is most needed to support entrepreneurship? Experienced
researchers from different countries were invited to share their views on this topic
and to suggest paths for future research that would benefit the development of
entrepreneurship.
First speaker: Leo-Paul Dana
How wonderful it is that we are in Nova Scotia. I would like to thank Professeur Louis
Jacques Filion for bringing us all together here. Last night some of you might have
been looking at the sky. Those of you who live in the Northern Hemisphere might say,
‘it is just the sky’. For me, coming from New Zealand, when I am here I think
‘Wow! What a different sky because here we see a completely different set of stars!’
The sky looks different depending on one’s location; in other words, context defines the
sky.
Likewise, time is a function of context. We say that a year is 365 days, or 366 during
a leap year; this is based on the solar calendar. Further north, in Canada, the Inuit
calendar was based on the moon. Several other cultures use a lunar calendar or a
combination. If we were on the planet Mercury, a year would be 88 days.
Those of you who came from the West moved your watches ahead when you arrived
in the Maritimes. At least we have an accepted convention, and all of us here agree that
when we are here we all use the local time, as defined depending on the seasons and the
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concept of ‘daylight savings’ time. A few years ago I was working in Xinjiang, the
western part of China where the Han-Chinese are a minority. Officially, in Xinjiang, we
use ‘Beijing Time,’ but the Indigenous people set their clocks to the time it was in the
Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union. So, even in one city, different people
operate on unlike time zones. When I had an appointment with a Han-Chinese we agreed
to meet on ‘Beijing Time’. When I wanted to meet Indigenous Uygurs, it was necessary
for me to be aware that they operated on a different time zone. Thus, I had two sets of
appointments. On a given day I could be at 2 pm with a Han-Chinese interviewee, and a
few hours later I could be a Uygur at 2 pm his time. The essential was to understand the
importance of context.
My message to you today is that context is also central to the understanding of
entrepreneurship. Context is important when deciding on research methodology. Context
is again important when understanding results. Finally, context is important when
considering implications and recommendations.
When deciding on methodology, a first consideration is whether to go for quantitative
or qualitative methods. We all know that it is easier to get quantitative research accepted
at a conference or in a journal. In natural sciences, you get your numbers, you use a
package such as SPSS, and a hypothesis is either supported or not. When dealing with
large sample sizes in mainstream society, you can usually say that the easy road is
quantitative. But here again context is important.
We have done heaps on the psychology of the entrepreneur, on the traits related to
entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs are people who tolerate risks, who are willing to work
more... Some years ago, I went to the Canadian North and I asked Aboriginal people.
‘Why are you entrepreneur?’ The responses I got included: ‘Well, you see, I don’t like
risk therefore I must be entrepreneur. If I work for a company and I’m late four times a
week and I miss all the afternoons, they fire me, that’s too much risk. I don’t like risk, so
I can’t be employed, I must be entrepreneur, it’s the only way I have no risk. Also, if you
work for a company that puts you in an office all alone, I don’t like making decisions all
alone. I’d rather be with my many brothers and sisters and we make decisions together by
consensus. I am entrepreneur because I don’t like to work very much, and I don’t need
too much money, so, when we are hungry we’ll find some caribou, and we’ll share; we
won’t sell, we won’t buy, but we will share.’ Indeed, an entrepreneur in the Arctic has
access to caribou, but this is very context-specific!
If we have to consider the setting, then quantitative research isn’t necessarily the best
way to go. Anthropology is decades ahead of us. Let’s look at the anthropological study
of Professor Service and his wife, a wonderful study of Tobati, Paraguay published in
1952: Ethnography over a year was the best way to find out about entrepreneurs and
small businesses in Tobati. Frederik Barth studied entrepreneurs and change in Northern
Norway. Again, the ethnological approach I think has a lot to teach us. And so, I see
entrepreneurship as a function of context, and qualitative research is the means to
rigorous research where context is important.
Qualitative research has given us more entrepreneurship theory than has come from
quantitative research. Adam Smith gave us theory based on qualitative research. The
same is true of Joseph Schumpeter. Qualitative research gives us theories, but quantitative
studies are easier to get published. So we are faced with a dilemma. Should we aim for
easy publication of quantitative studies, or should we face the greater challenge of
The future of entrepreneurship research
109
theory-building with quantitative methods? In my opinion, the latter will have more
impact.
Anthropologists and sociologists have been building theories through qualitative
research. Why is less coming from us? Perhaps we need more inter-disciplinary research
teams to help us broaden our spectrum and better understand the context of
entrepreneurship, in order to build relevant theories.
I just shared a few words to start some debate, some discussion. I am keen to listen to
you now.
Thank you all for attending.
Second speaker: Pierre-André Julien
To continue the intervention of Léo-Paul, there are different environment for
entrepreneurship, including the temperature and the obligation to take into account the
frost for the production and delivery or other consequences. For example, in the last
winter, Quebec City received five metres of snow and Montreal, four metres; this
situation had many consequences for tourist industry and for thousands of small firms,
because the soil was not frozen with this snow and mosquitoes did not die and they have
been much more important this year. In other words, there are thousands of different
kinds of small businesses, entrepreneurs and environments and the studies must keep in
account these differences. It is why, for example, the traits’ theory, based just on the
venture entrepreneurs (less than 1% of entrepreneurs) cannot explain the behaviours, for
example, of hundreds of small garage owners or small shopkeepers and their embedding
in their environments and in their neighbourhoods.
To understand that, we must return to four periods of entrepreneurs and small
business or entrepreneurship analysis. The first one, before the ‘70s, come from the
economic analysis and their positivism approach which has evolved from the ignorance
(the firm seen just as a ‘black box’) to the indifference because the ‘sacred cow’ theory of
the economies of scale (only large firms if not monopolies and trusts are important). It
was true also in the communist countries, when we see for example in Poland a farming
tractor factory with 50,000 workers. In this understanding, small business was not
interesting even if it was to be studied on a human scale.
The first questionings of this approach in the beginning of the ‘70s resort to the
interstice’s theory developed before. For example, Ansiaux (1926) explained that in the
hat industry, man common hats was made by large enterprises when the women hats
had to be produced by small enterprises because of their needs for differentiation
(colour, form, etc.). Penrose (1959) followed these explanations with geographic,
cultural and technological interstices, as far as the demand became greater for large
production.
The second questioning came from the discovery of the Italian industrial districts in
the ‘70s working with thousands of small businesses competing large firms and exporting
in the world, districts that we discovered also in other countries. In Montréal, for
example, we found more than 500 very small firms in the fur industry, some ones
dressing the pelts, others making collars or sleeves, others making the lining, etc.;
and most of these fur coats were sold in Montréal hotels to foreign tourists. One
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explanation was that these districts were a proto-capitalism intended to disappear; but
they still exist.
In the ‘80s, the post-positivism and the interpretationist approaches of the
management sciences have finally understood that small firms were not ‘small-large
firms’. In particular, the theory explaining that the effectiveness requires the development
of strategic planning in all firms (Robinson and Pearce, 1984) came up against a brick
wall. Many small firms without formal planning were more efficient than others with
these ones. Other concepts in marketing as relational marketing, human resources
management and informal organisation or finance with angel capital and others such as
the three F capital (family, friends and fools) had to be developed to understand SME
behaviour and their differences with large enterprises.
In the ‘90s, the third period, we were a witness to the intrusion of other disciplines.
For example, the anthropologists and the psychologists explain that the entrepreneur is a
member of a society and his destiny is influenced by his family, friend circles and more
often work environment. The sociologists arrived with others concepts as the influence of
social capital and the milieu for the success of the firm creation and its development; they
explain the impact of different kinds of networking in the territory, multiplying
opportunity, innovation and distinction in SMEs.
Now, in the ‘2000, we must have to adopt more and more a constructivist approach to
see entrepreneurship as a complex collective phenomenon including many more or less
independent actors enacting more or less with others and using the space synergy, the
industrial atmosphere and the entrepreneurial culture, as mentioned by Marshall (1920) in
the 1890 and as shown in the post-institutionalists and conventionalists following Veblen
(1915) and Commons’ (1919) analysis in the ‘20s and ‘30s.
But, in the future of entrepreneurship research, we need many other concepts and
theories to understand better this complex phenomenon which include very small firms,
social entrepreneurship, underground and informal entrepreneurship, declining firms and
bankruptcy, for example, and to apply it to different periods and regions. It is the only
manners to explain why some regions are more entrepreneurial or more dynamic to
multiply the gazelles and global small enterprises.
Thank you.
Third speaker: José M. Veciana
Good morning. First of all I would like to thank Professor Filion for his kind invitation to
come to Halifax and to talk to you about the future of entrepreneurship research.
Anyhow, let me say first a few words about the past and present research on
entrepreneurship and SMEs. For this purpose, I would like to present the results of a
small research that I made on the papers presented at the RENT conference organised
every year by European Council for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ECSB) in the
last 20 years in Europe. This will give you an idea of what research has been done and
what are the trends in this field in Europe.
To make the analysis of the papers presented at the RENT conferences, I used the
classification based on a concept that I developed some years ago about the ‘theoretical
approaches to entrepreneurship’ (Veciana, 2007).
The future of entrepreneurship research
Table 1
111
Theoretical approaches to entrepreneurship research
Approaches
Level
of analysis
Micro
(individual
level)
Economic
approach
• Entrepreneurial
function as
fourth factor of
production
• Theory of the
entrepreneurial
profit
Psychological
approach
• Traits theory
(corporate
level)
Macro
(global-country
level)
• Network
theory
• Transaction cost
theory
• Schumpeter’s
theory of
economic
development
• Theory of the
endogenous
regional
development
• Margination
theory
• Psychodynamic
• Role theory
theory
• Theory of
occupational
choice under
uncertainty
Meso
Socio-cultural
approach
• Network
theory
• Incubator’s
theory
• Kirzner’s
entrepreneur
theory
• Evolutionary
theory
• Weber’s
theory of
economic
development
Managerial
approach
• Leibenstein’s
x-efficiency
theory
• Behavioural
theory of the
entrepreneur
• Modes of new
enterprise
creation
• Models of new
enterprise
success and
failure
• Corporate
Entrepreneurship
• Theory of
social change
• Population
ecology theory
• Institutional
theory
Source: Veciana (2007)
In my opinion, when we look at entrepreneurship research we find that almost all
entrepreneurship research in the past can be classified under four approaches: the
economic approach, the psychological approach, the socio-cultural/institutional
approach and what I have called the managerial approach. And furthermore, it can be
classified under three levels: ‘micro, meso and macro or global level’. As can be seen in
Table 1, I found a lot of theories on entrepreneurship. The first three approaches
(economic, psychological and socio-cultural/institutional approach) try to explain
entrepreneurship whereas the managerial approach tries to generate knowledge that can
be used in practice by the potential entrepreneur and the small business owner/manager,
that is research under the managerial approach, like strategy or organisation, tries to
develop knowledge that may be useful for starting a new company or managing an
ongoing small business. For obvious reason, I am not going to treat these several theories
here. As mentioned above, I have used this scheme for the analysis and classification of
the RENT papers and to present the results of my analysis (see Table 2).
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Table 2
Research trends based on RENT papers
Economic
approach
%
Period
Psychological Socio-cultural/institutional Managerial
approach
approach
approach
%
%
%
Others
%
1987–1992
10.4
6.4
3.25
54
19.5
1991–1996
10.0
5.65
14.6
61
7.6
1997–2001
10.8
2.3
19.14
57
10.76
2002–2006
7.3
2.2
15.2
58.8
16.5
Source: Veciana (2006)
If we look at Table 2, we see that the managerial approach is the most used approach,
that is, most research (over 50%) falls under the managerial approach. The percentage of
papers on the economic approach and the psychological approach is very low (about 10%
and 5% respectively), and research under the socio-cultural/institutional approach is
increasing and accounts for 15–20% in the last three periods. These results can therefore
be summarised as follows: a predominance of the managerial approach; a decreasing
and insignificant level of the psychological approach that was predominant in the
eighties; a low level of the economic approach and increasing importance of the
socio-cultural/institutional approach.
I have made a reclassification of these results taking into account the development
and life cycle of firms, as shown in Figure 1. This figure shows that we first have new
firms, then these firms become SMEs, later family firms and, if they are successful, they
become big corporations. I think that entrepreneurship research as a field of study
concentrates, or should concentrate mainly on new firm formation, although the field is
generally also supposed to include research on SMEs and family businesses (see Veciana,
2007). Therefore, I have looked at the question how research refers to these three areas.
Figure 1 shows the results.
As we can see in Figure 1, entrepreneurship research concentrates very little on the
new firm formation process (only 5%) and very much on SMEs (88.34%) and this
although the RENT conference was called at the beginning ‘recent research on
entrepreneurship research’. 6.66% of the papers referred to family businesses. These are
the results.
Let me now bring some reflections and questions that came to my mind when looking
into these papers and made the analysis. These are:
1
Are the research results of interest for the practitioners and/or public policy makers?
When I say here practitioners, I mean the business owners/managers and, of course,
future potential entrepreneurs.
2
Who is the prime beneficiary of this research?
Who benefits from this research? I came to these questions when looking into some
of the papers presented in the RENT conferences. I am not going to read many of the
titles of the papers, but as an example, I would like to mention these two:
a
Identifying prominent and emerging antecedents to role stress
b
Diversity in praxeo-cognitive models of the entrepreneur and his interactions
with the ‘motivators’ and ‘subject-matter’ of a project.
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Who is interested in these kinds of subjects? Who is interested in the answer to
these questions? Frankly speaking, in my opinion it only interests the authors of the
papers, nobody else.
Figure 1 A reclassification of the managerial approach (RENT)
TIM
E
Notes: NE
New firms
SME
Small and medium-sized enterprise
FB
Family business
BC
Big corporation
Source: Veciana, Rent XX, Brussels (2006)
I now come to the second part of my presentation. The future of entrepreneurship
research. On the one hand, I am optimistic, but on the other, I am rather pessimistic.
I am optimistic because when looking into the papers presented in the conferences on
entrepreneurship and SME research you find very interesting papers. No doubt. Empirical
research is usually well designed and sophisticated statistical techniques are used. But
when I compare what has been written in the last 20 years to what was discussed in the
first international entrepreneurship conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1975, I come to the
conclusion that we are asking, probing and debating essentially the same questions.
Therefore, I think we have not progressed because we have not yet been able to answer to
the main questions in our field. This is why we need to change the focus. Therefore,
when considering the future of entrepreneurship research I think we should focus on the
following questions:
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Who are or who should be the clients of entrepreneurship research?
Or who is or may be interested in the results of entrepreneurship and SME research?
In my opinion these are the clients:
a
the potential entrepreneurs and practising small business owners/managers
b
public policy makers
c
academic world:
1 scientific journals
2 university career.
2
Change of focus.
Regarding the future of entrepreneurship research, my view, desire and recommendations
refer to the following questions:
1
more client orientation
2
more longitudinal studies
3
more international studies
4
more good qualitative research
5
more theory building.
Regarding ‘client orientation’, I think that it would be good for the future of
entrepreneurship research if researchers would consider more who may be interested in
the research results.
We have heard this morning that policy makers are very much interested in the
research results to formulate their policies, but that they do not get relevant results. What
they get is very little and not relevant. I think that the majority of the papers presented in
conferences are written with the idea of whether or not they will be accepted for
publication in a scientific journal and its publication will help the author’s university
career. The problem lies also in the advisers and/or thesis supervisors who do not guide
young researchers to relevant research. I would not like to be misinterpreted. Most of the
papers presented in the conferences are good, the statistical analysis is excellent, very
sophisticated, but the objectives, the focus and the scope of the research is not relevant in
most of the cases. Therefore, my recommendation would be a change of focus and more
client orientation. Research should not only be oriented towards the academic world and
the academic journals but to the potential entrepreneurs, small business owners/managers,
and policy makers.
We also need more longitudinal studies. I know that these are difficult and costly. The
‘publish or perish’ syndrome leads to young researchers to do research that does not take
long but the results are usually of very limited value.
The scope of the studies should also be larger. This morning we have heard about
community and entrepreneurship. This is OK, but this is nothing new. We have heard
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about this for decades. In the field of applied economics, we have witnessed the progress
in regional development and endogenous development theory that focuses on the region
and the field of economic geography that focus also on territorial units, as well as the
cities and urban agglomerations. Therefore, the focus on the community is not new, much
research has been made in the last years by our colleagues in neighbour disciplines but it
seems to be new in the field of entrepreneurship research. Therefore, we need more
interdisciplinary teams, and also more international teams. Entrepreneurship research
should have a broader focus to be able to obtain answers to the questions that are relevant
to the above mentioned clients: future entrepreneurs, small business owners/managers,
and public policy makers.
We also need more good qualitative research. The emphasis is on good qualitative
research. Let me mention that in the field of strategy and organisation, the research that
has been a milestone in the field has been qualitative. Think only of the work by
Chandler: ‘Strategy and structure’ or by Burns and Stalker: ‘The management of
innovation’. They were based on good qualitative research and have stimulated and
guided future research. Qualitative research is increasing in Europe but most papers that
claim to use a qualitative approach are really very ‘light’. Good qualitative research can
seldom be based on only one or two cases and on the transcription of the answers to a
questionnaire without a deep analysis. If I plea for more good qualitative research this
does not mean that I am against quantitative research. Both are necessary and useful, but
since most empirical research is now quantitative, in my opinion attention should be
drawn to the need of more qualitative research.
Future entrepreneurship research should also pay more attention to theory building.
We need more efforts to integrate the results of the research of the last 20 years in
theories that are useful for the future entrepreneurs and the small business
owners/managers. A lot has been researched on growth, innovation, internationalisation,
but we lack a growth theory or an innovation theory of SMEs.
I will finish here and hope that my comments and provocative ideas will stimulate
some discussion. Thank you very much for your attention.
References
Ansiaux, M. (1926) Traité d'économie Politique, Marcel Girard, Paris.
Penrose, E.T. (1959) The Theory of the Growth of the Firm, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Robinson, R.B. and Pearce, J.A. II (1984) ‘Research trusts in small firm strategic planning’,
Academy of Management Review, Vol. 1, No 1, p.128-137.
Marshall, A. (1920) Principles of Economic Policy, 8th ed. (1st ed. 1890), Macmillan, London.
Commons, J. (1919) Industrial Good Will, quoted by Girou, G., Théorie économique aux ÉtatsUnis: l’économie institutionnelle, tome II, 2nd ed., Donnat-Montchestiers, Paris.
Veblen, T. (1915) Place of Science in Modern Civilisation, Huebsch Editor, New York.
Veciana, J.M. (2006) ‘Keynote speech’, delivered at the XX RENT Conference, Brussels.
Veciana, J.M. (2007) ‘Entrepreneurship as a scientific research programme’, in Cuervo, A. et al.
(Eds.): Entrepreneurship, Concepts, Theory and Perspective, Springer-Verlag Berlin,
Heidelberg.
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Louis Jacques Filion
Many thanks to the speakers for their stimulating ideas.
Are there comments, questions, suggestions?
Discussants1
Tor Aase Johannessen
I have been working with new ventures and done research on these for several years and I
fully get along with your recommendations. In many research projects, the most
important stakeholders – the entrepreneurs themselves – are more often than not left out.
As a consequence, when you present the outcome of the research to them, they feel that it
does not concern them. In the EU, the attitude is that funds for entrepreneurship research
should primarily be granted if the projects include those for which the research
supposedly is being done. I would strongly advocate that we include the users because in
addition, to give the research greater credibility, they can shed valuable light on many
still undisclosed parts of entrepreneurship research which researchers either do not see, or
do not recognise as important. The second point is that it is extremely important to
provide for more international research. My own research has shown that there are a lot
of similarities between entrepreneurs in different countries, and that this is seldom
recognised. My third and final point is that entrepreneurs often are very secretive and
many believe that their problems are unique and not shared by others. Furthermore, many
lack to see that these problems can also be found in other industries. As soon as this is
recognised, many entrepreneurs will realise that they are neither ‘alone in the world’, nor
are their problems unique and limited to their own industry.
Answer to Tor Aase Johannessen
José M. Veciana
Thank you for your questions. I agree with your observations. Specially, I agree that we
have to incorporate the users, the applicants of the research results in our research design.
Anyhow, I do not think that our aim should be to attract the practicing small business
owners to this type of conferences because they would be bored. They would not
understand most of the research that is being presented. The crucial question is to
consider and incorporate in the research design the users’ problems, expectations and
worries. I think this is important. As far as I can see it, this is not done. And this is the
main weakness of the research being done at present. As I said, research should be more
client oriented and should look for ways to incorporate users’ problems and expectations
into the research design and then present the research results to them, but not try to attract
them to theses conferences.
Pierre-André Julien
There are two main characteristics of small business entrepreneurs. The first is
heterogeneity: there are thousands of kinds of small businesses and thousands of kinds of
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entrepreneurs. That is the first main characteristic. It is why it is so difficult to understand
them. The second is the complexity or its characteristic to act as a systemic process where
each function is linked with others functions. In addition to these, some SMEs are a part
of a group or are embedded deeply in the regional milieu. Some were managed with
conservative direction when others have a dynamic entrepreneur. It is why this is very
difficult to find a representative sample or good data.
On the other hand, there are some similarities. For example, we found some small
businesses that had the same characteristics in African countries, in Quebec, in Canada,
for instance, the higher level of education of entrepreneurs. In Canada, this level of
education of entrepreneurs is about 20% higher than the average of the population; we
found many entrepreneurs with a university grade; in Gabon, we found that, if the urban
population has a first degree of school, most of the entrepreneurs have second degree, and
so on. And in all countries, most SMEs are linked just with strong signals networks when
the more innovative are linked with weak signals networks. But, in the same time, the
capitalist system is very different not only between countries, but inside each country. For
example, look at Italy where you find big enterprises in the North, in cities such as
Milano and Torino, then industrial districts with thousand of very small businesses in the
centre, the Terza Italia, and another system of small enterprises linked vertically in the
South. In the same time, the influence of family, or the system promoting the reputation is
not the same in different countries or territories.
It is why the entrepreneurial research is so difficult and it is why research is a long
process, requiring many papers and complex qualitative and quantitative studies to
develop new and fickle concepts, and finally more than one theory to explain a complex
and dynamic reality.
Louis Jacques Filion
Thank you. There are some questions I’d like to ask. As far as entrepreneurship research
is concerned, I practice what Veciana said when it comes to do the planning of my own
research activities. I include some research projects for practitioners, some for policy
makers and some for academic journals. Many of us who do research from a management
perspective, when we want to publish in academic journals A or B, we need to have
quantitative research. However, when we want to write really satisfying papers, we
choose other categories of journals and submit good qualitative papers that we find much
more exciting.
The main question here concerns theory building. When we look at theory building in
the history of the human sciences, we realise that few theories were derived from
quantitative research. One of the most quoted authors in economics is Adam Smith and
his material is all qualitative. When we look at the contribution of Schumpeter, it is all
qualitative. Schumpeter did not even have data. Schumpeter would probably not have a
paper accepted in most of our research conferences today because he didn’t have
empirical data. When you look at education, you realise that one of the most basic
contributions came from Piaget who had only three samples that he used for all his
writings. They were his three children.
When we look at any of the human sciences, almost all the theory building came from
qualitative research, but in entrepreneurship we are totally dominated by quantitative
research! Why? Maybe it is because it is the policy makers who have the money to
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subsidise research? They need data that support the research in order to be able to sell
their policies within their government, ministries and business communities. That’s the
way it works. So, one of the questions is: Will any real theory building come in our field
of entrepreneurship from quantitative research, given that the field is dominated by
quantitative researchers? And in which area of the field will it be? Or might it come from
qualitative research even though this type of research, although more recognised than it
was 30 years ago, is still not yet fully recognised?
I was probably the first or one of the first Canadian researchers to do qualitative
research in entrepreneurship. When I went to conferences, people asked me: What type of
research are you doing? What kind of stuff are you working on? Colleagues were both
intrigued and interested. Nowadays, you can see that qualitative research is becoming
more and more popular. Another question is: How will the theory building be developed?
How are we going to develop our theories? Will they come from quantitative research, or
from qualitative research, or from both? Will they come from researchers working from
established disciplines such as economics, or from emerging field of studies?
Will we maintain our association between entrepreneurship and innovation?
Practically, everything written about entrepreneurship in the last 100 years associates
entrepreneurship with innovation. Before Schumpeter, we had Cantillon and the risk
theory. Almost 100 years after Cantillon, Jean-Baptiste Say associated entrepreneurship
with added value and innovation. One hundred years later, Schumpeter re-introduced
entrepreneurship from the ideas of Jean-Baptiste Say and emphasised the importance of
innovation. Nowadays, we are still using the same terms and everybody who defines
entrepreneurship defines it in association with innovation. Although there is more
complexity associated with entrepreneurship, the basic question remains: Which track is
going to be the one that will lead to theory development and to theory building in
entrepreneurship and will help ensure that our field evolves from a field of study to a real
discipline? The question remains open.
José M. Veciana
I think this is the most interesting challenge we have now. We lack legitimacy.
Entrepreneurship as an academic field receives much attention but little respect. I think
that we have made enough empirical research on entrepreneurship and SMEs and we can
now devote some effort and time to develop theories or a more integrated theory, a theory
that integrates the knowledge that we have and that guides future research. When looking
at the many good papers presented in conferences, I observe that they are all developing
their own framework. They do not base their research on a theory, on a recognised theory.
In the field of strategy or organisation, we have theories that guide research and integrate
the knowledge that has been generated through empirical research, theories that serve to
establish further hypothesis and help to advance research. So, this is the question: who
should do this? This could be done by a person or by a team.
Matthias G. Raith
I definitely agree with most of the recommendations for future research. However, I
would hesitate to share the criticism of past research. Entrepreneurship is an area of
research which is only a few decades old. Although the importance of entrepreneurs has
been known for a long time, the systematic research on their economic contribution is
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actually quite young. Research in economics, in general, is a bit older, but here as well,
we are asking the same questions over and over again. By comparison, the well
established science of physics is a few hundred years old. So maybe in 200 years we will
be less critical about our own science.
Regarding the suggestions for future research, one that I think is very important is the
recommendation to be more client-oriented in our work. I do not think it is so relevant to
contrast qualitative with quantitative methods, but, instead to rethink the perspective that
we are taking in our research. Most empirical studies are of descriptive nature, where we
are looking at what is being done, what entrepreneurs do, in general, and what successful
entrepreneurs do, in particular. In contrast, economic theory building typically follows a
normative approach. The problem here, though, is that many aspects of the
entrepreneurial process are difficult to incorporate in normative theories. What I suggest
as an alternative is a prescriptive approach which acknowledges the entrepreneur as a
decision maker and views the entrepreneurial process from his or her perspective. This is,
by definition, a client-oriented approach.
In my view, the most promising prescriptive approach to entrepreneurial decision
making is one based on methods of decision analysis. Its client-oriented focus allows us
to accept and work with the visions of the entrepreneur. With value-focused thinking – as
opposed to conventional alternative-focuses thinking – alternatives for opportunity
exploitation can be generated in the process of decision making, which is a very
important characteristic of the entrepreneurial process. Moreover, an analytical approach
such as decision-making forces one to understand the context that the decision maker, i.e.,
the entrepreneur, is in. The formal framework enables one to model how the entrepreneur
deals with the context, and it allows us to understand how a change of the context
changes the way the decision maker acts. This aspect is very important for policy making
and policy makers.
So, I think many of our current and continuing research questions can and should be
readdressed in a new way. In my view, most useful is a prescriptive approach that focuses
on the entrepreneur as a decision maker, but rather than trying to describe or model these
fascinating characters, we should look at ways to guide, support and direct them in the
entrepreneurial process.
José M. Veciana
First, I would not set qualitative against or versus quantitative research. Both are
important and useful. The problem in my opinion is that most empirical quantitative
research is based on ‘ad hoc’ hypothesis, very often ill-formulated related to a personally
created framework, because we lack a theory from which we can derive hypothesis to be
empirically tested. Anyhow, in this connection I would like to recall what I mentioned at
the beginning regarding the many theories identified under the several scientific
approaches (see Table 1). But we still lack a more general theory of entrepreneurship.
Second, I agree that most empirical research is descriptive research, but I do not share
your pessimism regarding theories because it is difficult to incorporate many of the things
of the entrepreneurial processes, as you say. On the contrary, the great philosophers of
science like Popper, Lakatos, and Kuhn have taught us that theories are, and must be, at
the basis of the development of a science. Popper sees science as a set of hypothesis that
are tentatively proposed – in a theory – with the aim of accurately describing or
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accounting for the behaviour of some aspect of the world or universe, what Lakatos calls
hard core and Kuhn a paradigm. Regarding the usefulness of theory Kant already
discussed and refuted the popular aphorism ‘Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt
aber nicht für die Praxis’ (This may be true in the theory, but is useless for the practice).
In the field of business administration but also in entrepreneurship, we have good
evidence that a solid ‘theory’ or ‘hard core’ fosters and guides fruitful research. Let me
mention three examples:
a
population ecology of organisations regarding births and deaths of firms
b
transaction cost economics (Williamson, 1975)
c
more recently the resource-based approach.
They all have stimulated much research to test their initial assumptions in their respective
fields. From the results of the empirical research based on a good and strong theory it is
then possible to derive prescriptive rules for the practitioners. This is, in my opinion, the
way to proceed if we want entrepreneurship as a field of study to have academic
legitimacy and to be useful for the practice.
Louis Jacques Filion
Many thanks to the speakers, to the discussants and to the participants to this workshop.
Muchas gracias. Merci beaucoup. Many thanks to have shared stimulating thoughts. We
will end here because I am told that the session should now be over.
References
Williamson, Oliver E. (1975) Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Anti-Trust Implications,
Free Press, New York.
Notes
1
Comments were kept from only two discussants.