Is the medium really the message? Moving perspective from the entrepreneurial actor to the entrepreneurial action

Researchers should shift the focus of entrepreneurship studies from the individual entrepreneur to entrepreneurial action.This shift in focus involves defining the entrepreneur as the medium of entrepreneurship and the context of entrepreneurial behavior as the message at the heart of entrepreneurship.Much of entrepreneurship research operates on the male myth of the entrepreneur as conquering hero and rule-breaker.Such research generates a narrow, inaccurate representation of what is involved in entrepreneurship by excluding unconventional entrepreneurs (such as women and minorities), entrepreneurship in forms other than business creation, and temporary entrepreneurship. In order to understand entrepreneurship as a process rather than as an act inextricable from the individual actor, researchers must define entrepreneurial action in terms that do not presuppose the agent in a specific form. They must, in other words, view entrepreneurship as the novel combining of resources in order to create, expand, or build.An action-oriented definition of entrepreneurship enables a richer, more complex understanding of the phenomenon since action is not bound to certain actors or outcomes. (SAA)