Researching Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is a phenomenon of tremendous societal importance. It is also an elusive phenomenon, which makes researching it fun, fascinating—and frustrating at times. In Researching Entrepreneurship one of the most highly recognized entrepreneurship scholars shares in a personal and readable way his rich experience and ideas on how entrepreneurship can or should be researched. Numerous real examples accompany the treatment of problems and solutions concerning design, sampling, operationalization and analysis. Suggestions for further improvements are also provided.


While Researching Entrepreneurship is targeted primarily at research students and academics it is of interest also for those who have professional reasons to collect and analyze data from new and small firms, or assess the dynamism of the economy. For example, analysts in marketing research or consultancy firms, business associations, statistical agencies and other government offices may find this book to be a valuable tool. Moreover, while the examples are derived from entrepreneurship research the book provides a unique "experienced empirical researcher" (rather than "textbook method expert") treatment of issues that are of equal relevance across the social sciences. This goes for topics like the role of theory; quantitative and qualitative research approaches; validity checking; statistical inference, and replication.


Per Davidsson is Professor in Entrepreneurship at Brisbane Graduate School of Business, QUT, Australia, and at the Jönköping International Business School in Sweden. In addition, he holds academic side appointments in China, Latin America and the US.