Abstract
The Handbook of Research on Entrepreneurship and Aging provides the reader with a thorough view of a very topical research area. The ageing of the workforce and entrepreneurs in many Western Countries has highlighted the importance of senior entrepreneurship, that is, individuals who are intending to create, are in the process of creating or have created a business at the age of 50 or over (Kautonen, 2013). This book is of relevance to scholars who are interested in incorporating ageing entrepreneurs into their studies and to practitioners and decision makers who are eager to understand the dynamics of senior entrepreneurship. The research field regarding ageing and entrepreneurs is far too wide to be fully covered. Therefore, this Handbook focuses on three specific themes: the international perspective, innovation, and performance and the behavioural perspective. In addition, several case studies are included in order to present evidence from different countries.
The Handbook covers international aspects regarding the number of older entrepreneurs per country. An interesting perspective is provided by Catarina Seco Matos and Miguel Amaral (Chapter 2), who map different supporting initiatives and programmes aimed at facilitating older entrepreneurship across the globe. Based on the findings of this section, we learn that viable and successful entrepreneurship which is already created at earlier life stages may also be facilitated by appropriate support programmes. Furthermore, there may be country-specific differences in the factors that push and pull wage-and-salary employees into self-employment (Chapter 1).
Contrasting senior entrepreneurs with their younger counterparts or indeed wage-and-salary employees is a concrete way to understand the special features of these groups. In the Handbook, special attention is being paid to innovativeness, firm performance, and other entrepreneurial features. The general finding is that the businesses of senior entrepreneurs were neither less nor more innovative than their younger counterparts (Chapter 4), but that the relationship between company founder tenure and firm performance exhibited an inverted U-shape (Chapter 6).
The behavioural perspective on senior entrepreneurship is one of the most interesting ones in the Handbook. Looking at abilities, motivation, experience and life or work satisfaction in the context of ageing is of importance if we think about how to facilitate entrepreneurship among older wage-and-salary employees. As such, psychological factors are likely to play a significant role in the entrepreneurial process (Gielnik et al., 2018), which comprises the phases of opportunity identification, evaluation and exploitation (Shane and Venkataraman, 2000). Drawing on these principles, Zacher, Mensmann and Gielnik (Chapter 8) argue that integrating a life-span perspective and the entrepreneurial process of senior entrepreneurs could be used as an overarching theoretical perspective in conceptualising age-related psychological research in entrepreneurship.
The Handbook is strongly focused on senior entrepreneurs. Taking this perspective is relevant not only because of the ageing of the workforce and changing perceptions of work careers, but also because of a strong expectancy of self-employment as a means of participating in working life in old age. However, in addition to senior entrepreneurs, we need to think about those ageing entrepreneurs who have entered the profession at younger ages and are looking to exit their companies and retire from an entrepreneurial career. One wonders whether or not the same challenges and opportunities are relevant for both of these groups of entrepreneurs. For instance, do the businesses they run differ in terms of their size and industry, and how dependent is the entrepreneur on the income from the company (vs receiving pension benefits). At the end of the day, entrepreneurs, along with employees, will want to transition into retirement and successfully adjust to life in retirement (Wang and Shi, 2014). For entrepreneurs, this can mean the possibility to gradually decrease their work commitment, exit their company and ultimately take on new roles as retirees.
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, which started in November 2019 in Wuhan, China, reached Europe and Northern America in March 2020. Within a couple of weeks, we witnessed devastation as hundreds of thousands of people contracted the disease and the number of infected started to rise. For the economy and entrepreneurs of all ages, this rapidly progressing crisis is and continues to be devastating. While it is still too soon to tell what the post-corona economy looks like, one thing is obvious: building the economy and getting businesses back on their feet will take a lot of hard work, dedication and collaboration across the globe. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO, 2020, April), during the second quarter of 2020, an equivalent of 195 million full-time workers will lose their jobs due to the COVID-19 crises. Not all of these individuals will find employment, which is why senior entrepreneurship may be an increasingly viable employment opportunity in the future.