Small Business and Entrepreneurial Research

Abstract

Small business and entrepreneurship has emerged as an important area of research over the past 40 years. Much of this development has been achieved by drawing on and adapting the theoretical frameworks of disciplines from outside. However, such diversity of disciplinary foundation does not necessarily result in a diversity of underlying meta-theoretical assumptions within an area. Other areas of the social sciences have benefited from the consideration of the meta-theoretical foundations of their research and as a consequence they have been able to extend their research into new agendas. There has been some meta-theoretic discussion of small business and entrepreneurial research, yet the review conducted for this project found no recent articles that provided a systematic analysis of contemporary research. This article will address this gap by employing Burrell and Morgan's (I1979) paradigmatic taxonomy to conduct a systematic meta-theoretical analysis of articles published in the year 2000 by leading authors in key small business and entrepreneurial journals. The analysis shows a dominance of the functionalist paradigm that pervades the elite discourse of research in leading journals and acts as a potential barrier to other perspectives. Whether a Hegelian or Kuhnian perspective on knowledge production is taken, it is clear that the health and future development of research in this area requires a broadening of perspectives to enable debate, friction, creativity and ultimately new theories and understandings.

Conceptualising entrepreneurship as economic 'explanation' and the consequent loss of 'understanding'

“…In turn this approach has shaped how we should conduct entrepreneurship research. Grant and Perren's (2002) analysis shows a dominance of the functionalist paradigm that pervades the elite discourse of research in leading journals and acts as a potential barrier to other perspectives. More problematically, as Steyaert and Katz (2004) point out, scholarship tends to follow to the path that is already illuminated.…”

Entrepreneurial processes and the social construction of opportunity

“…And they are often located in paradigms that characterise particular assumptions about social reality (i.e. the radical structuralist, radical humanist, functionalist, interpretivist paradigms promoted by Burrell and Morgan, (1979) in organisation studies, and Grant and Perren (2002) in entrepreneurship. These categories of assumptions are helpful to the extent that they highlight the contrast and duality of various positions thus enabling researchers to surface their own assumptions about how particular organisational/entrepreneurial practices come to 'occur' or 'be' in the social world.…”

“…In so doing, I respond to concerns about the lack of theoretical development within entrepreneurship inquiry -the reason for which has been attributed to a focus on phenomenological lines of inquiry (Ucbasaran et al, 2001), an over reliance on anecdotes or stories and a preponderance of positivist/functionalist paradigms (Grant and Perren, 2002) and the lack of sophistication of qualitiative methods (Olson, 1997;Sexton, 1997). But I argue here, supporting Shane and Venkataraman (2000) and Busenitz et al (2003), that what is needed is closer consideration of the ontological/epistemological aspects of our research.…”

“…But I argue here, supporting Shane and Venkataraman (2000) and Busenitz et al (2003), that what is needed is closer consideration of the ontological/epistemological aspects of our research. This means careful examination of the meta-theoretical foundations of our research (Grant and Perren, 2002). It also means more extensive excursions into the philosophical issues that aid scholarly work and theoretical development (Busenitz et al, 2003).…”

Social Entrepreneurship Avenues for the Field Development Through Research Paradigm Intersection Discussion

“…Despite ongoing definitional debates on the concept and phenomenon of social entrepreneurship, there have been three dominant schools in social entrepreneurship research: social innovation, earned income, and EMES, which emerged in more than 5 a two decades now 9 . What all approaches have in common is, the social aim in social entrepreneurship, as an undiscussable feature 10 .…”