Entrepreneurship in historical context: using history to develop theory and understand process

Research Summary We consider two sources of innovation, technical and financial, and examine their separate and joint impacts, through the process of financial intermediation, on the nature of entrepreneurial opportunity. These impacts are time dependent and reflect the institutional context of entrepreneurship. As illustrations, we investigate three historical episodes, ranging from the product led innovations of the industrial revolution, to the closely aligned innovations of the buyout wave of the 1980s to the more recent effects of finance led innovation. We identify systematic underlying factors that can cause significant differences in the entrepreneurial opportunity set. Managerial Summary We provide lessons from three historical periods regarding how policy toward entrepreneurship might ensure technical and financial innovations are successfully intermediated. This implies an alliance‐based notion of entrepreneurship, underpinned by enabling systems of governance and suitable institutions reduced dependence on specific individuals or generations. A balance also should be struck to mitigate risky investment through sharing, and specifically equalizing rights and information between borrowers and lenders. Regulatory changes should discourage capital and information hoarding and support risky lending to asset‐backed, knowledge‐based industrial projects.

Section: Historical Approaches To Entrepreneurshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Innovation, intermediation, and the nature of entrepreneurship: A historical perspective

Toms

Wilson

Wright

2019

“…This perspective involves looking specifically at co-occurring elements during such a process: actors with goals and interests; objects being categorized; contexts and situations; acts of categorization; and temporal conditions surrounding the process (Durand et al, 2017: 9-14). This perspective coincides with contextualized approaches of entrepreneurial activity whose goal is to examine how context and entrepreneurial actions shape each other (Wadhwani, 2016;Welter, 2011).…”

Section: A Sociopolitical View Of Categorizationmentioning

confidence: 79%

“…First, it explains the emergence of windows of opportunity during which entrepreneurs can take actions and achieve desired outcomes because the classification systems were “in flux” (Ruef & Patterson, ). In this view, history “implies that entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial processes can be uniquely understood by relating them to this historical context” (Wadhwani, : 66; Popp & Holt, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…History is made up of narratives that “connect the dots in causal terms” (Morck & Yeung, : 55; Hansen, ) and inform us of the influence that context has on causal relationships. We therefore undertake a multi‐level analysis, looking both at the firm level and at the population level (Forbes & Kirsch, ) to resituate entrepreneurial behaviors within the flow of time and context (Lippman & Aldrich, ; Wadhwani, ; Welter, ). Taking a historical approach enables the researcher to grasp multiple sources of variation and selection and their impact on organizations (Lippman & Aldrich, ), and to focus on the macro turning points that are generally overlooked in management studies (Isaac & Griffin, ).…”

Section: Empirical Setting: the Categorization Of A New Populationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, any classification and the categories they articulate require to be considered contextually and be an object of investigation symmetrically with the entities they categorize (Abbott, : 34). In this view, the context is neither a general backdrop (Braudel, [1969]: 22) nor an external environment (Wadhwani, ) but is something to be explored and connected with entrepreneurial activity.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Reintroducing public actors in entrepreneurial dynamics: A co‐evolutionary approach to categorization

Demil

2019

Research Summary Categories are important cognitive and social interfaces for entrepreneurs and new ventures. However, the categories forged by the state and public agencies have been largely overlooked by the literature. A historical narrative explores the categorization process to register French mail order companies in an administrative nomenclature. This categorization performs reality by providing legality to a new population and by producing enduring social boundaries. Moreover, the historical reasoning enables to assimilate the emergence of a new category with a co‐evolutionary process, avoiding the reification of categories by considering multilevel interactions. Finally, our narrative highlights the need to consider the interests of entrepreneurs and public actors symmetrically. Managerial Summary How do the state and public agencies categorize new activities? Such categorization can have substantial consequences for entrepreneurs in terms of subsidies, regulation, or control. A historical narrative is built to trace the emergence of the French mail order category in a public nomenclature. This narrative suggests that the categorization results from the convergence of three evolutions over time: a growing interest of public policy in retailing; the development of the French statistical apparatus after world war II (WWII); and the collective entrepreneurship of the mail order companies. Entrepreneurs should consequently dedicate attention to the tools for recording economic activity, be aware of windows of opportunity occurring in the categorization process and eventually take action to influence the way they are categorized.

Historicizing entrepreneurial networks

Hollow

2020

Research summary In recent years, there has been increased interest in the role of context in different entrepreneurial processes. This article builds on this line of research by deploying a microhistorical‐informed approach to contextualize and make sense of the ways in which the correspondence network of the nineteenth‐century British entrepreneur, Isaac Holden, changed over time. In the process, it contributes to our understanding of entrepreneurial networks by illustrating: (a) how networking activities take place through specific communication platforms with their own socio‐technical qualities; (b) how entrepreneurs have the capacity to actively shape and co‐create the context within which their networking activity takes place; and (c) how entrepreneurial networking activity can take place in conjunction with—or as a result of—networking activity in other social movements. Managerial Abstract For entrepreneurs, having an effective network of trusted contacts can be the difference between success and failure. But what happens to these relationships when (or if) the entrepreneur achieves commercial success? Do they change? This article advances our understanding in this respect by providing an in‐depth analysis of how, and why, the personal network of Isaac Holden—a British wool manufacturing entrepreneur from the Victorian era—changed over time. In the process, it provides interesting insights into how political, social, cultural, and technological factors have the capacity to shape the way that entrepreneurial networks change and evolve over time.