Abstract
This book by Landström and Lohrke has changed my view about the history of entrepreneurship research and why history matters to contemporary entrepreneurship research. Often, entrepreneurship is thought of as a very young field of research with few contributions before the 1980s, when journals such as International Small Business Journal and Journal of Business Venturing were launched. While Schumpeter’s work has been influential it is likely that few entrepreneurship researchers, myself included, are unaware of the ways in which different scholars have conceptualized both the entrepreneur and entrepreneurship over several centuries. For example, I was surprised to learn that there was an active research community in entrepreneurship at Harvard University some 60 years ago, and that the journal Explorations in Entrepreneurial History provided an outlet for a wide range of empirical studies several decades before the leading entrepreneurship journals that we have today were launched. Clearly, any entrepreneurship researcher would benefit from knowing more about the past accomplishments upon which we are building.
The main message of Landström and Lohrke in this book is that history matters in entrepreneurship research. According to the editors, ‘the aims of the book are (a) to historicize the research on the entrepreneur and entrepreneurship, and (b) to stimulate a fruitful assimilation of historical concerns and reasoning in entrepreneurship research’ (p.2). Along with their own contributions, Landström and Lohrke have invited a number of prominent entrepreneurship scholars to contribute chapters covering important concepts and theories of entrepreneurship. The list includes Baron, Delmar, Jack, Lumpkin, Sarasvathy and Wiklund to mention a few.
This review can only provide a brief overview of the comprehensive content of the book’s 18 chapters. In the introductory chapter, the editors explain the rationale behind the book and give a brief overview of the content of each chapter. The remaining chapters are grouped into three parts. Part I, ‘Historical Development of Entrepreneurship as a Research Field’, consists of two chapters that provide a synopsis of the development of entrepreneurship by considering the scholarly migration between entrepreneurship and other disciplines, and by using citation analysis to analyse research communities and knowledge platforms in entrepreneurship research. Both chapters provide systematic and highly informative overviews of the historical development of entrepreneurship research.
Part II, ‘Intellectual Roots of Entrepreneurship Research’, comprises 11 chapters that focus on the historical roots of the different core theories and concepts which have been used by scholars. The first four chapters are grouped under the subheading ‘Opportunity Recognition’ and elaborate on environmental uncertainty, entrepreneurial alertness, opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial orientation. The following section on ‘Opportunity Evaluation’ contains one chapter which addresses the decision-making literature. The third subheading ‘Opportunity Exploitation’ contains four chapters on liability of newness, entrepreneurial groups, governance and socio-network theory. Finally, two chapters on the psychology of entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurship are grouped under the subheading ‘Integrative Works’. Although these chapters differ in their approach and scope, they all focus on theories and concepts commonly used in entrepreneurship research, as well as discussing their roots and historical development. While together all the chapters cover different parts of the entrepreneurial process, they should be regarded as examples of different theories rather than any complete overview. There are ample opportunities to extend this selection of chapters with additional works examining other important theories and concepts not covered by this book.
Part III, ‘Economic History and Entrepreneurship Research’, consists of four chapters. This part differs from the rest of the book by taking an economic history perspective. Landström and Lohrke argue that economic history has been neglected for a long time in entrepreneurship research, and thus they aim to reintroduce interest in this perspective. The first chapter gives a detailed overview of the use of historical reasoning in the development of entrepreneurship as a field of research, while the remaining three chapters provide examples of the use of historical reasoning to examine entrepreneurship in different contexts: Great Britain, Sweden and East Asia, respectively.
The strength of an edited book like this is that it draws together contributions from a diverse set of well-known and competent scholars. The trade-off is that these contributions do not necessarily build on each other. In this book there is no explicit link between the overview of the history of entrepreneurship research provided in Part I, and the specific theories and concepts scrutinised by the chapters in Part II. Moreover, Part III stands out from the rest of the book with a different perspective. Hence, the different chapters provide interesting examples or pieces of the puzzle, but the reader will not get a complete overview from reading all the chapters. I regard this more of a limitation than a weakness of the book, because many trade-offs would be needed to make a complete overview. Providing many high-quality examples illustrates the diversity of perspectives and approaches which makes entrepreneurship such an exciting field.
To conclude, I think this book makes an important contribution to entrepreneurship research in at least two ways. First, it shows in a very convincing way the importance of history to our current understanding of entrepreneurship and the theories used in this field. Second, in Part II the chapters actually examine the roots and history of several important theories. Many of the book’s chapters should be essential reading for anyone using the specific theories examined, and reading the whole book is likely to provide most entrepreneurship researchers with a broader perspective of the field. Landström and Lohrke aimed to create an increased awareness that history matters in entrepreneurship research, and I believe that they have accomplished this aim in a very convincing way.