We are indebted to Shaker Zahra, Mike Wright and Sondos Abdelgawad for their contribution to our 'Future Directions' occasional series of research papers. The focus on context is timely and apposite; in essence all social phenomena are undertaken in specific contexts which intersect to generate, enable or constrain particular forms of behaviour. Yet so often in contemporary research, the critical and dynamic influence of context is taken for granted and remains invisible and unacknowledged. Within this paper, the authors evaluate the role of context in advancing research into entrepreneurial propensities, activities and outcomes. As such, it offers an invaluable reminder of the importance of this construct but importantly, using the insights generated from the many iterations and influences of context suggests coherent future research pathways to advance current theoretical and empirical analyses of entrepreneurship. We are confident this article will be an invaluable contribution to informing future research endeavours. Contextualization and the Advancement of Entrepreneurship Research 1 AbstractWithin this article, we analyze the role of context in the advancement of entrepreneurship research. We define contextualization and discuss why and how it is important in entrepreneurship research; the evidence relating to different dimensions of entrepreneurial context, focusing on temporal, industry, spatial, social, and organizational, ownership and governance is reviewed. The nature of entrepreneurship research with and without contextualization is explored and finally, we consider the challenges in undertaking contextualized entrepreneurship research.

The entry of young and aggressive multinational corporations from emerging economies into developed countries’ markets is an important trend that promises to shape the global competitive landscape. Brazilian, Chinese, and Indian multinationals typify this growing trend. The individual and collective experiences of these multinationals provide an interesting context in which organizational unlearning becomes a means for inducing multifaceted learning that enables these companies to develop and exploit their entrepreneurial capabilities. In this article, the authors discuss the challenges associated with unlearning and how it sets the stage for learning and exercise of entrepreneurial capability for competitive advantage. The authors also identify important research questions that deserve exploration.

Game-changing strategies occupy a central and distinctive place in companies' quest for competitive superiority. These strategies center on fundamentally changing the rules of competitive rivalry in an industry (Markides, 2008). They also help companies create new industries, redefine (un) profitable niches, redraw and reconfigure industry boundaries, and alter the basis of competition. These strategies often introduce new competitive paradigms that fuel innovation that reshapes the domain and dynamics of competition. Applying these game-changing strategies has allowed as different companies as Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook to fundamentally change their business ecosystems and environments, gaining and sustaining market prominence. Yet despite their popularity, we know little about the approaches companies take to craft game-changing strategies. We know even less about how leaders execute and institutionalize these strategies and create organizational contexts that promote new ways of thinking, organizing, and competing. Leaders define these strategies, making them an epicenter of their efforts dedicated to transforming their business ecosystems and industries. These issues are the focus of this article.

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