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This article uses the six key specification decisions for entrepreneurship research (purpose, theoretical perspective, focus, level of analysis, time frame, and methodology) outlined in Low and MacMillan (1988) to explore unstated assumptions in entrepreneurship theory development. An article by Shane and Venkataraman (2000), “The Promise of Entrepreneurship as a Field of Research,” is analyzed and recommended as a model for clarity. A recommendation is made that the field of entrepreneurship needs to develop communities of scholars identified with specific research questions and issues.

In their path-breaking article, Low and MacMillan (1988) suggest that entrepreneurship be defined as the “creation of new enterprise.” The purpose of entrepreneurship research should be to “explain and facilitate the role of new enterprise in furthering economic progress” (p. 141). Such a delineation, they hold, would o- and macro-perspectives. They argue that researchers must acknowledge that entrepreneurship studies could and should be carried out at multiple levels of analysis and that these analyses complement each other. The reasons for studying entrepreneurship on multiple levels of analysis lie in the characteristics of the entrepreneurial phenomenon itself.

This article evaluates the emergent academic field of entrepreneurship to better understand its progress and potential. We apply boundary and exchange concepts to examine 97 entrepreneurship articles published in leading management journals from 1985 to 1999. Some evidence was found of an upward trend in the number of published entrepreneurship articles, although the percentage of entrepreneurship articles remains low. The highly permeable boundaries of entrepreneurship facilitate intellectual exchange with other management areas but sometimes discourage the development of entrepreneurship theory and hinder legitimacy. We argue that focusing entrepreneurship research at the intersection of the constructs of individuals, opportunities, modes of organizing, and the environment will define the field and enhance legitimacy. Decision theory, start–up factors of production, information processing and network theory, and temporal dynamics are put forward for entrepreneurship scholars to explore important research questions in these intersections.

More than a decade ago, Low and MacMillan identified three elements indispensable to an understanding of entrepreneurial success: process, context, and outcomes. Since their critique, three important advances include (a) a shift in theoretical emphasis from the characteristics of entrepreneurs as individuals to the consequences of their actions, (b) a deeper understanding of how entrepreneurs use knowledge, networks, and resources to construct firms, and (c) a more sophisticated taxonomy of environmental forces at different levels of analysis (population, community, and society) that affect entrepreneurship. Although our knowledge of entrepreneurial activities has increased dramatically, we still have much to learn about how process and context interact to shape the outcome of entrepreneurial efforts. From an evolutionary approach, process and context (strategy and environment) interact in a recursive continuous process, driving the fate of entrepreneurial efforts. Thus, integrating context and process into research designs remains a major challenge. Such integration constitutes a necessary step to a more complete evolutionary approach and a better understanding of entrepreneurial success.

The new venture decision is a crucial stage in the process of creating a new business and is influenced by a series of social, demographic, cultural and economic factors, amongst others. These factors have been the subject of several studies, though there is still no widely accepted agreement on exactly how they affect the decision to create a new enterprise. This study will provide evidence on which variables affect the new venture decision, as well as the extent of their influence based on the analysis of a sample of 7524 cases, using information obtained via the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2001 Project. At the same time, we provide evidence to show that there are differences in the way these variables affect new ventures born out of need or out of opportunity.

Ours is a multifaceted academic discipline. Indeed, scholars seeking to publish their management-related research in have interests in diverse areas of inquiry, such as management history, technology and innovation management, and management spirituality and religion, among a host of others. The Academy of Management’s 24 divisions and interest groups are perhaps a meaningful proxy for the sheer diversity of management scholarship. One might even argue that the eclectic nature of this scholarship contributes to researchers’ ability to consistently produce intriguing and stimulating findings.