Entrepreneurship Theories

"75% of entrepreneurs in 48 economies around the world said that their family was involved in starting their businesses, either as co-managers or co-owners. The vast majority of startups around the world are, in fact, family businesses." - Babson Entrepreneurship has non-economic dimensions as a vehicle for legacy or building family institutions. Many aging entrepreneurs wish to pass the business to the next generation, while other feels to pull of the family business as they reach maturity.  However, it's not all about succession! Family entrepreneurship is about families building businesses together, often for the first time. Perhaps one of the most interesting characteristics of families is their ability to pool together resources to spawn new ventures that achieve family goals (Chrisman et al., 2003).  Randerson et al. (2015) propose a number of interesting new topics for family entrepreneurship scholars to pursue. They suggest researching 'copreneurs', ...

When we think about a digital entrepreneur, we might imagine a single person making millions of dollars through a fully automated website or app. That seems very different from the traditional view of entrepreneurship as a process of organization-building. Where is the organization in digital entrepreneurship? Zaheer et al. (2019) review the literature and find that focus on 'digital entrepreneurship' is relatively new, starting in 2013. Before that, the research attention was on the transformation of business models due to the spread of the internet and the rise of e-commerce. It only became a big topic when entrepreneurs in the digital space started making waves with digital business models that have very small human organizational footprints. There has been a growing movement to distinguish digital entrepreneurship from traditional types of entrepreneurship. For example, Kraus et al. (2019) stimulate attention to digital entrepreneurship by suggesting that we need new the...

The relationship between entrepreneurship and narcissism has been a topic of interest among researchers and scholars for many years (Campbell et al., 2011).  While some studies suggest that narcissistic traits can be beneficial for entrepreneurial success, others argue that they can have negative effects on both the entrepreneur and their ventures (Leung et al., 2021). Entrepreneurs tend to score higher on measures of narcissism than non-entrepreneurs. Some researchers suggest that moderate levels of narcissism may be associated with increased self-confidence, risk-taking, and charisma, which could help CEOs in some situations. For example, a confident CEO may be more likely to pursue new opportunities or navigate challenging situations with ease. Narcissistic CEOs can also have a detrimental impact on the company and the work environment they create. Narcissists take credit for successes and blame others for failures, resulting in a lack of accountability and toxic workplace dynam...

Mental disorders were previously studied as problems needing remedies like medication, interventions, or counselling. A common misconception today is that those with mental health disorders are incapable of the same things that neurotypical individuals are. Neurodivergent individuals often perceive and process information differently than neurotypical individuals consider “normal.” However, that does not make them any less capable. Neurological disorders have been linked to success in many instances, particularly in entrepreneurship. In 2015, Freeman et al. (2015) studied 335 individuals, including 242 entrepreneurs. The study revealed that 49% of the entrepreneurs reported having one or more lifetime mental health conditions.  They were also significantly more likely to report a lifetime history of depression (30%), ADHD (29%), substance use conditions (12%), and bipolar diagnosis (11%) than were comparison participants.  These results suggest that while individuals with ment...

The External Enabler Framework (Davidsson, Recker & von Briel, 2020) is a conceptual toolbox developed for analyzing the strategic and fortuitous influence of changes to the business environment in entrepreneurial pursuits. External Enabler (EE) refers to significant changes to the business environment, such as new technologies, regulatory changes, macroeconomic shifts, demographic and sociocultural trends, changes to the natural environment, and the like. The basic assumption of the EE body of work is that every such change will benefit some entrepreneurial initiatives even if it disadvantages other economic activities. EE analysis focuses on those enabled; other frameworks are needed for analyzing negative consequences of change. The EE concept was introduced as a more workable alternative to “objective opportunity” for realizing the idea of entrepreneurship as a nexus of enterprising agents and favorable environmental conditions (Davidsson, 2015). Unlike the notion of objective ...