The future of the field of entrepreneurship is bright primarily because of the many research opportunities to make a difference. However, as scholars how can we find these opportunities and choose the ones most likely to contribute to the literature? This essay introduces me-search and a special issue of research-agenda papers from leading scholars as tools for blazing new trails in entrepreneurship research. Me-search and the agenda papers point to the importance of solving a practical problem; problematizing, contextualizing, and abstracting entrepreneurship research; and using empirical theorizing to explore entrepreneurial phenomena.
AlvessonM.SandbergJ. (2011). Generating research questions through problematization. Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 247–271.
2.
AshbyW. R. (1956). An introduction to cybernetics. Chapman & Hall.
3.
BakerT.NelsonR. E. (2005). Creating something from nothing: Resource construction through entrepreneurial bricolage. Administrative Science Quarterly, 50(3), 329–366.doi:10.2189/asqu.2005.50.3.329
4.
BoxenbaumE.RouleauL. (2011). New knowledge products as bricolage: Metaphors and scripts in organizational theory. Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 272–296.
5.
DavidssonP.LowM. B.WrightM. (2001). Editor’s introduction: Low and MacMillan ten years on—Achievements and future directions for entrepreneurship research. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 25(4), 5–15.doi:10.1177/104225870102500401
6.
DavisM. S. (1971). That’s interesting! Towards a phenomenology of sociology and a sociology of phenomenology. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 1(2), 309–344.
7.
HansenH. (2008). Abduction. InBarryD.HansenH. (Eds.), New approaches in management and organization (pp.454–463). Sage.
8.
JohnsG. (2018). Advances in the treatment of context in organizational research. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 5(1), 21–46.doi:10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-032117-104406
9.
LockeK.Golden-BiddleK.FeldmanM. S. (2008). Perspective—making doubt generative: Rethinking the role of doubt in the research process. Organization Science, 19(6), 907–918.doi:10.1287/orsc.1080.0398
10.
RobertsJ. (2004). Organizational design for performance and growth. Oxford University Press.
11.
RommeA. G. L.DimovD. (2021). Mixing oil with water: Framing and theorizing in management research informed by design science. Designs, 5(1), 13.doi:10.3390/designs5010013
12.
ShepherdD. A. (2003). Learning from business failure: Propositions of grief recovery for the self-employed. Academy of Management Review, 28(2), 318–328.doi:10.5465/amr.2003.9416377
13.
ShepherdD. A.SuddabyR. (2017). Theory building: A review and integration. Journal of Management, 43(1), 59–86.
14.
ShepherdD. A.SutcliffeK. M. (2011). Inductive top-down theorizing: A source of new theories of organization. Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 361–380.
15.
WeickK. E. (1989). Theory construction as disciplined imagination. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 516–531.doi:10.5465/amr.1989.4308376
16.
WelterF. (2011). Contextualizing entrepreneurship—conceptual challenges and ways forward. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 35(1), 165–184.doi:10.1111/j.1540-6520.2010.00427.x
17.
WiklundJ. (2016). Re-search = me-search. InAudretschD.LehmanE. (Eds.), The Routledge companion to the makers of modern entrepreneurship (pp.245–257). Routledge.
18.
WiklundJ.DavidssonP.AudretschD. B.KarlssonC. (2011). The future of entrepreneurship research. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 35(1), 1–9.doi:10.1111/j.1540-6520.2010.00420.x
19.
WiklundJ.PatzeltH.DimovD. (2016). Entrepreneurship and psychological disorders: How ADHD can be productively harnessed. Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 6(4), 14–20.doi:10.1016/j.jbvi.2016.07.001
