The Genesis of Entrepreneurship

Abstract

The study of entrepreneurship is still in its infancy. Kuhn (1962) points out that fields of knowledge evolve through paradigm competition and the search for better answers to new sets of inquiries, in which the maturing field of entrepreneurship, too, should be engaged. Barriers to evolutionary advances in entrepreneurship include the field's uneven development, its lack of consistency of terminology or method, and its relative isolation from developments in key informing fields. To avoid fragmentation and to enhance the opportunity for the systematic development of the entrepreneurship paradigm, an exploration of its parameters is proposed. Considered are three concepts central to entrepreneurship but heretofore unexamined in an integrated fashion by entrepreneurship researchers. The intent is to explicate their separate and joint conceptual relationships to and means by which they inform or add to the field. A rudimentary process model addressing the factions of change, innovation, and creativity in association with the entrepreneurial event is presented as a fundamental basis for providing continuity and structural consistency to the evolving field of entrepreneurship. Finally, a call is made for careful definitions and explorations of differentiated (but oft-equated) central entrepreneurial terms, processes, and perspectives.