A critical review of critical perspectives in entrepreneurship research

Reflecting on ‘what entrepreneurship is and how entrepreneurship might be studied’, Gartner (2004, p. 199) used the notion of ‘critical mess’ to invoke an image of a ‘pile of scholarship’ and mass of non-scholarly material on entrepreneurship that has been generated as ‘data’ for developing stories, theories, concepts, policies and insights for understanding the phenomena of entrepreneurship. One of Gartner’s (2004) main concerns in this essay was to use the phrase ‘critical mess’ to argue that academics might practise different forms of entrepreneurship scholarship by ‘enlarging what we currently consider to be the relevant kinds of evidence’ (p. 202) and to use these different forms of evidence as a basis for theory development. Ten years on, the story of entrepreneurship research is one that is character- ized by fast growth, expansion and diversification, as the social, economic or cultural significance of entrepreneurship has been recognized and advanced through the application of multiple disciplinary approaches, definitions, concepts, units of analysis, dynamic principles and modes of explanation. Moreover, an extensive evidence base has been created using traditional empirical data sources (surveys and large data sets), immersive methodologies (such as ethnography, participant observation), practice-oriented approaches (such as action research or enactive research) as well as heuristic (i.e., auto-ethnography; autobiography) and discourse-based methods of inquiry (i.e., narrative analysis or story-telling). In this period, we have also seen a growing interest in broadening out the functional economic role of the entrepreneur (Schumpeter 1912/1961, etc.) to take account of entrepreneurship as a social, historical and cultural phenomenon (Cole 1959; Fletcher 2006) and a general societal force that permeates everyday life (Steyaert and Katz 2004). Furthermore, we have been made aware of how it is possible to claim a ‘double sociality’ for entrepreneurial endeavours, in the sense that they produce social change and transformation at the same time as having a social nature (Steyaert and Hjorth 2006, p. 1). This has the effect not only of disclosing and contextualizing entrepreneurial endeavour as a part of society, but also of emphasizing entrepreneurship as an action-centred ‘shaping process’ (Ardichvili, Cardozo and Ray 2003; Dimov 2007). We can also observe a closer examination of the relation between human action (or agency) and social environment (or structure), whether in terms of the nexus of individual entrepreneur and antecedent market opportunity (i.e., the ‘individual-opportunity nexus’, Shane and Venkataraman 2000) or the ‘action-interaction nexus’ between individual and social context (Venkataraman et al. 2012). These analytical categories are based on a subject-object dichotomy or inner-outer distinction, which cue explanatory elements that are ‘internal’ to the individual (such as cognitive structures or decision-making) and ‘external’ to the individual (such as social interactions, firm processes and market opportunities) (Venkataraman et al. 2012). Structuration theory has also been used to argue that the relationship between entrepreneurial action and context is a ‘reflexive’ process in which the entrepreneur reflects on and responds to the consequences of their own actions (Sarason, Dean and Dillard 2006). In addition, there has been consideration of the causal significance of structural contexts, such as market systems, social networks and firm structures (Aldrich and Kenworthy 1999; Chiles et al. 2010; McKelvey 2004; Mole and Mole 2010), as well as material contexts, such as technologies and resources (Baker and Nelson 2005; Garud and Karnøe 2003), that have properties that are mutually constituted with action, but which endure separately and have their own dynamic with entrepreneurial action. We can also read about entrepreneurship as a ‘phenomenon’ or ‘process’ associated with the creation of new ventures, organizations, opportunities, commodities and markets, rather than as a type of ‘setting’, such as small business or owner-managed business (McMullen and Dimov 2013; Shane and Venkataraman 2000; Wiklund et al. 2011). Seeing entrepreneurship as a phenomenon, event or process recognizes that entrepreneurship is context-specific, time-specific and multi-dimensional in time and space. This fuels even more the diversification of the field into new spaces of inquiry (Landstöm 2005) that include not only a multiplicity of contexts, from universities (Shane 2003) to urban spaces (Dobers 2003), households (Mason 2011) and rural settings Fletcher and Watson (2006), but also time-relative analyses that examine how entrepreneurial events emerge/unfold over time through interrelationships between actions, contexts and outcomes (Aldrich 2001; Dimov 2011; McMullen and Dimov 2013; Mohr 1982; Sarasvathy 2008, Shane 2003). As even this limited overview of the shifts and developments in entrepre- neurship scholarship demonstrates, the more inclusive evidence base and ‘critical mass/mess’ that Gartner (2004) called for, is being realized. A pertinent question for entrepreneurship scholarship ten years on, therefore, relates to the ‘critical’ dimension of the phrase ‘critical mess’. Naturally, most, if not all, scientific research incorporates some levels of critical thinking defined as: ‘the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skilfully conceptualizing, applying, analysing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action’.1 In practising critical thinking, inquirers critique extant research positions, authenticate the evidence bases used and ‘strive to avoid speculative arguments and erroneous conclusions’ (Alvesson and Ashcraft 2009). At the same time, however, the term ‘critical’ is often associated with particular intellectual traditions such as Postmodern Thinking, Critical Theory and PostStructuralist theories, as well as streams of research such as Critical Management Studies (CMS). In entrepreneurship scholarship, there has been widespread usage of the term ‘critical’ to signify a search for alternative ways of knowing and understanding what constitutes entrepreneurial activity and how these activities/practices may be studied. It is not immediately apparent, however, the extent to which this interest in criticality is symptomatic of the post-positivist expansion of entrepreneurship research and the inclusive critical thinking quest for a ‘critical mess’ of evidence and multiple perspectives (Gartner 2004; Jennings, Perren and Carter 2005). Or, whether, and perhaps simultaneously, this interest is indicative of ‘critique inspired’ analyses in the sense conceptualised by Alvesson and Deetz (2000, p. 8) where critique re-examines social institutions, ideologies, and discourses in terms of representation and domination. In this chapter we evaluate the collection of studies using the terms ‘critical’ and ‘entrepreneurship’ in order to make transparent the kinds of questions, issues and concerns being addressed through critical inquiry. Our main interest is to offer a reflection on the process of critical inquiry in entrepreneurship research and to draw attention to how different inquirers engage with criticality in order to stimulate alternative ways of attending to entrepreneurship. In the first section of what is to follow, we outline the core assumptions, meanings, tactics and principles that are central to critical research. Next, we undertake a review of the entrepreneurship literature to identify the research problems being addressed through the use of critical research tactics and we distinguish some defining characteristics of the approaches, tactics and methods explored. In the discussion section, based on this analysis, we consider the extent to which critical work/critique is becoming more visible within entrepreneurship inquiry and gaining momentum (Hjorth and Steyaert 2010, p. 192). We conclude with some suggestions for sharpening critical engagement and reflexivity in entrepreneurship research.