Three waves and counting: the rising tide of contextualization in entrepreneurship research

Knowledge management and entrepreneurship

“…Entrepreneurship activity relies on new and existing knowledge to facilitate economic development (Welter et al 2019). While certain theories and empirical findings for entrepreneurship may hold in certain national and institutional contexts and not in others, the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship (KSTE) holds across a variety of institutional and industry contexts and for developed and developing countries (Bruton et al 2008;Agarwal et al 2010;Audretsch and Belitski 2013).…”

“…The articles selected for this special issue convey to various degrees the insights we have previously mentioned emphasizing the role of cognitive proximity for knowledge and the importance of the industry context (Welter et al 2019).…”

“…The complexity of global change in knowledge management highlights the necessity of collaborative engagement between different fields of science. Researchers and practitioners are keen to strengthen our understanding of challenges related to investment in knowledge and technology internally, as well as our understanding of how to access knowledge via collaboration with external partners and knowledge spillover within domestic and across international contexts (Welter et al 2019). Much of what is known about knowledge management in entrepreneurial organizations is based on studies of endogenous growth (Romer 1994), strategic entrepreneurship (Agarwal et al 2010;Audretsch et al 2015a;Ghio et al 2015); international business and knowledge spillover of entrepreneurship (Cuervo et al 2007;Acs et al 2013) and open innovation theory West and Bogers 2014).…”

The Performance of High-Growers and Regional Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: A Research Framework

“…These studies are predominantly focused on the resource-based factors, such as entrepreneurs' and firms' characteristics, with limited attention to the impact of environmental context (Chandler, McKelvie, & Davidsson, 2009;. However, the environmental influences are increasingly recognized as considerable explanatory factors of entrepreneurial choices Welter, 2011;Welter, Baker, & Wirsching, 2019;Zahra & Wright, 2011;Lipińska, 2018). They are also promising in resolving the ambiguity of findings as to expansion determinants (Chandler, McKelvie, & Davidsson, 2009;.…”

Introduction

“…In other words we suggest a contextualized approach to entrepreneurship, drawing attention to its diversity, instead of the predominant decontextualized approach that emphasizes its similarities. Our editorial apparently was spot on -there is a growing conversation around entrepreneurial diversity and variation and a promising movement towards more realistic models of entrepreneurship (for example, Aldrich Friederike Welter -9781788119474 Downloaded from Elgar Online at 07/05/2020 01:10:08AM via free access and Ruef 2018; Pahnke and Welter 2019;Welter, Baker and Wirsching 2019). As soon as we start to contextualize, we need to realize that there is not one best model of entrepreneurship, but several and that our explanations are getting more complex -contextualizing comes with a few trade-offs between simplicity, accuracy and generalizability of our theories.…”