How not to do it!! A salutary lesson on longitudinal and qualitative research approaches for entrepreneurship researchers

Abstract

Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by 198285 [] For AuthorsIf you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. IntroductionIt has become established that longitudinal research of human experiences is difficult to undertake (Saunders et al., 2007). Both quantitative and qualitative investigations are challenging and the main problem consistently is attrition (e.g. Ployhart and Vandenberg, 2010). Quantitative samples start off, necessarily, large in scale. Attrition still occurs but the greater the size of the original sample, the less likely attrition will render comparison impossible. Qualitative and mixed methods studies, on the other hand, tend not to have a scale of population that can tolerate attrition to any great extent. Despite this, the value of longitudinal approaches in qualitative social studies is considerable as they may afford a quality of understanding that cannot be achieved by reliance on measurement alone, or on analyses of recollections (McLeod and Thomson, 2009). This is as true in business research as elsewhere.The current paper reports the attempts of the authors to conduct longitudinal mixed-methods (quantitative and qualitative) research in the entrepreneurship discipline. Specifically, despite the known difficulties associated with longitudinal studies, the authors considered that longitudinal research of entrepreneurship, starting with entrepreneurship education at university, could be facilitated by thorough preparation at the initial stages of the research. The social media revolution observed over the last few years through almost ubiquitous online social networking sites was an unanticipated bonus in this endeavour, and a robust, large, longitudinal follow-up study of entrepreneurship education appeared entirely feasible. The authors thus applied for and obtained external funding to conduct this longitudinal study. Unfortunately though, a robust follow-up survey was not the ultimate outcome. The current paper reports the research experience with a view to informing in terms of the pitfalls, and contingencies utilised to mitigate them, to avoid project failure.The paper starts with a review of longitudinal research in the social sciences and the challenges for both ...

Microfranchise emergence and its impact on entrepreneurship

“…Indeed, the merits of conducting qualitative research that tracks a nascent venture over a number of years has been espoused by Miller (2011) as a way of 'enriching our understanding' of the activities of entrepreneurs. However, longitudinal research in the field of entrepreneurship has been sparse (Galloway, Kapasi, and Whittam 2015). One noted exception is a study of Bangladeshi female entrepreneurs (Maas, Seferiasdis, Bunders and Zweekhorst 2014), although this covered a fairly short time period -two years.…”

An exploration of the Business Plan Competition as a methodology for effective nascent entrepreneurial learning

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Entrepreneurial Intentions: Moving the Field Forwards

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