Purpose Qualitative research has gained in importance in the social sciences. General knowledge about qualitative data analysis, how to code qualitative data and decisions concerning related research design in the analytical process are all important for novice researchers. The purpose of this paper is to offer researchers who are new to qualitative research a thorough yet practical introduction to the vocabulary and craft of coding. Design/methodology/approach Having pooled, their experience in coding qualitative material and teaching students how to code, in this paper, the authors synthesize the extensive literature on coding in the form of a hands-on review. Findings The aim of this paper is to provide a thorough yet practical presentation of the vocabulary and craft of coding. The authors, thus, discuss the central choices that have to be made before, during and after coding, providing support for novices in practicing careful and enlightening coding work, and joining in the debate on practices and quality in qualitative research. Originality/value While much material on coding exists, it tends to be either too comprehensive or too superficial to be practically useful for the novice researcher. This paper, thus, focusses on the central decisions that need to be made when engaging in qualitative data coding in order to help researchers new to qualitative research engage in thorough coding in order to enhance the quality of their analyses and findings, as well as improve quantitative researchers’ understanding of qualitative coding.

Purpose -This article investigates how rural entrepreneurship engages with place and space.It explores the concept of "rural" as a socio-spatial concept in rural entrepreneurship, and illustrates the importance of distinguishing between ideal types of rural entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach -The article uses concepts from human geography to develop two ideal types of entrepreneurship in rural areas. Ideal types constitute powerful heuristics for research and are used here to connect and review existing literature on rural entrepreneurship and rural development as well as to develop new research avenue and questions.Findings -Two ideal types are developed (i) entrepreneurship in the rural and (ii) rural entrepreneurship. The former represents entrepreneurial activities that have limited embeddedness and enact a profit-oriented and mobile logic of space. The latter represents entrepreneurial activities that leverage local resources to re-connect place to space. While both types contribute to local development, the latter holds the potential for an optimized use of the resources in the rural area, and these ventures are unlikely to relocate even if economic rationality would suggest it.Research limitations/implications -The conceptual distinction allows for engaging more deeply with the diversity of entrepreneurial activities in rural areas. It increases our understanding of entrepreneurial processes and their impact on local economic development.Originality/value -This study contributes to the understanding of the localized processes of entrepreneurship and how these processes are enabled and constrained by the immediate context or "place". The paper weaves space and place in order to show the importance of context for entrepreneurship, which responds to the recent calls for contextualizing entrepreneurship research and theories. In addition ideal types can be a useful device for further research and serve as a platform for developing rural policy.

Entrepreneurial activities are strongly influenced by the context in which they occur. It is therefore imperative to understand how different contexts enable entrepreneurs to create opportunities. In this paper we focus on the spatial context of rural entrepreneurs and explore how the rural context impacts on their opportunity creation. Based on a multiple case study we find that rural entrepreneurs mix what we refer to as placial embeddedness -an intimate knowledge of and concern for the place -with strategically built non-local networks, i.e. the best of two worlds. Notably, the entrepreneurs seek to exhaust the localised resource base before seeking out non-local resources. Our findings thus contribute to our understanding of entrepreneurship in context and challenge future research to explore how different forms of contexts are bridged in different settings to create varieties of entrepreneurial activities.

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