Trends in Entrepreneurship Research: An Exploratory Review

Abstract

This short paper attempts at comprehending the recent trends in entrepreneurship research as evident from the literature appeared in the 1980's and contemporary 90's in some major journals in the field. An effort of this, ideally, should define the crucial concepts like entrepreneur, entrepreneurship etc. at the outset. But since the canvas set here is very large and the intention is to sketch out the broad patterns and not to do a literature survey, we have considered all those articles that deal with various elements or facets of entrepreneurship irrespective of the diversity of definitions and attributed roles and functions. In doing so, we are also conscious of the fact that "in most academic studies of entrepreneurs the word 'entrepreneur' does not appear in the title, is either non-academic or is not about entrepreneurs at all". (Carson, Mark, 1982) The approach here is also different from the accepted practice of classifying topics in terms of their methodologies, objectives and "convergence to the core of the filed". Our attempt is more in the nature of an exploratory survey, with a view to bring the ongoing academic and non-academic (intellectual) discourses on entrepreneurship to the fore, for the benefit of those involved in research in the field.