Expanding Our Perspectives on Entrepreneurship Research
Entrepreneurship is a crucial yet disorderly and complicated social process. Scholars in this issue call on us to broaden our theories and expand our methodologies in our search for an enhanced understanding of entrepreneurship. In the lead piece, Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase and his co-author Ning Wang conclude that price theory is primarily concerned with resource allocation but says a little about innovation. In another thought-provoking editorial „Heroes, Villains, and Fools...“, Howard Aldrich suggests that the application of institutional theory to entrepreneurship must focus on institutional constraints to the process of organizational emergence. Robert Strom, in „Seeing Opportunities in Entrepreneurship Research...“, squarely confronts the data quality and availability in advancing entrepreneurship research. The three competitive research articles expand our research perspectives by: 1) comparing the barriers to startup creation in thirty-six countries and finding evidence that China and the U.S., while ranked the highest in terms of nascent entrepreneurial activities, have the toughest regulatory environments for entrepreneurs; 2) examining state bankruptcy laws and finding that more generous laws are associated with increased levels of replicative entrepreneurship but lower levels of innovative entrepreneurship; and 3) examining how and when corporate and banking ties can help venture-backed firms with initial public offerings.