Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice

As research in new and small businesses increases there is a need for increasing rigor in the area. In an effort to provide a basis for some improvement, an examination of item response rates and response quality in a recent survey of new, technologically oriented businesses has been conducted. The results show areas of similarity and differences between entrepreneurs and a general population. The application of response quality techniques to obtain additional information from survey data is also discussed.

Investigators’ practice of sampling from different populations has hindered the progress of empirical entrepreneurship research. Reaching agreement on a narrowed definition of the field would allegedly resolve the problem. However, this paper reports on a survey of emerging empirical fields that Indicates that such fields typically narrow the range of populations they consider, and achieve an acceleration in empirical progress, without a consensus on the definition of the field. The paper therefore investigates how empirical research in entrepreneurship might become constructively focussed through an alternative approach: formalizing the criteria that Investigators use in selecting their samples.

This section presents biographical sketches of selected members of our Editorial Review Board. These individuals perform the most important tasks of operating the Journal, the selection of the manuscripts to publish. They also dedicate much of their skill and time in working with authors to revise and improve the submissions. Because of the anonymous review system, they receive no direct credit for their work and very little recognition.

We are very proud of our staff and their individual and collective accomplishments. Hopefully, this medium will provide some recognition for them, as well as being a public expression of our appreciation for their contribution to the Journal and to the field.

Within the issue, they are presented alphabetically, but their appearance in a particular issue is based on a random process. Please take a few moments to acquaint yourself with our reviewers.