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Ganapathi Batthini, Vivek Bhatt and Rajiv Joshi (Eds.): Thematic & Analysis: 'The Journal of Entrepreneurship' Articles, Delhi: Bookwell, 2014, pp. 177, Price Rs.500/-.
The book presents thematic analysis of articles published in The Journal of Entrepreneurship for the last 20 years. The book incorporates the bibliographic data and annotated bibliography of 199 articles published in 40 issues of Journal of Entrepreneurship during the time span of 1992¬2011. The Journal of Entrepreneurship is a journal of Entrepreneurship Institute of India, Ahmadabad and is published by Sage Publications. The journal includes scholarly high quality research articles from scholars across the world. The book presents diverse topics of* research on entrepreneurship in a compact format.
The book in a way has three chapters covering four different aspects of entrepreneurship interests. The prologue brings out the growth of entrepreneurship as a subject of studies and research. It takes into account how to begin with Government of India, based on the realization that entrepreneurship works as a catalyst to the social, economic and national development, initiated many interventional. programmes to promote entrepreneurship in the country. Simultaneously, educational institutes and universities started imparting education and training to graduate and post- graduate students. Parallel to it, the research in the area of entrepreneurship also started getting prominence. Entrepreneurship as a discipline can be understood through interdisciplinary approach. Thus, it caught the fancy of researchers from management, commerce, economics, sociology and psychology besides the business studies. The issues of concern ranged from starting with debate whether entrepreneurs are born or made. Many of the studies have shown that entrepreneurs can be made through training and education. Thus the role of government programmes and educational institutes remains significant to prove the point. Then the research shifted to the creation, growth and survival strategies of enterprise. At present 40 different journals throughout the world are publishing the entrepreneurship research (a list of some such journals is given in the book: pp. 3-6). One can visualize the phenomenal growth of the subject. Worldwide conferences, seminars and workshops are also providing the platform to disseminate the research developments.
The second chapter on bibliographic information forms the central part of the book running into 137 pages and divided into two sections providing the most valuable information. The first section presents bibliography of the 199 articles published in different volumes of the Journal. The second section provides an annotated bibliography of articles published in 20 volumes of 'The Journal of Entrepreneurship'. An abstract of each article along with keywords running in 150-200 words provide instant insights into the issues of great relevance for a researcher. Even a layperson interested in knowing the field of entrepreneurship can be enriched with this compact source of knowledge.
The third chapter presents thematic analysis of articles presented in bibliographic information. Some interesting tables, bar graphs, pie charts reveal the nature and content of the publications. One important point Is that the Journal has been published continuously, without any break and delay since 1992 and on the average 10 articles were published each year; however, there was some lean period between 2000 and 2005 for which editors have not given any explanation. Interestingly, the scholars working in the area of entrepreneurship, are also individualists as nearly 53 per cent articles were single authored and each of the other 38 per cent were from two authors. Taking first author for analysis 53 per cent contributions were international, representing 25 countries of which United States of America and United Kingdom topped the list. In initial years, the Journal was a valuable source of book reviews and abstracts of the articles published elsewhere, but then gradually it declined for the reasons not mentioned. The distribution of keywords in table 3.5 is significant. Further analysis of themes of publication has identified 14 thought provoking and research driven keywords which show certain trends in entrepreneurship studies. These are banking, clusters, economic development, entrepreneurial motivation, human resource management, small and medium industries/enterprisesibtthinesses, social capital, women entrepreneurship, corporate entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship development and success, microenterprises, rural entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurship, and innovation. These themes depict that entrepreneurship studies, are not tagnating rather they are continuously moving on to explore recent challenging issues.
The book completes with epilogue and at the end with references, thus presenting a wide pool of research in a concise format.
The book is a relevant, thoughtful outcome of the editors' vision who compiled the articles according to themes. The book can prove as a handbook for beginners of entrepreneurship research and also an ultimate in itself providing a ready reference of various themes and topics of entrepreneurship research over the time. The Journal of Entrepreneurship is one of the leading journals in entrepreneurship studies in India with a high impact factor. The researchers and students of entrepreneurship must keep a copy of the book in their shoulder bags for ready reference. Anybody who is missing some of the issues of the Journal must procure a copy of the book.
Gurpreet Bal



Book Review Published in Guru Nanak Journal of Sociology (ISSN 0970-0242) Vol-35 No-1 & 2, 2014