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Defining the Field of Research in Entrepreneurship

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 DEFINING THE FIELD OF
RESEARCH IN
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
CHIRSTIAN BRUYAT
Université de Grenoble, Grenoble, France

PIERRE-ANDRÉ JULIEN
Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières,
Tros-Rivières, Quebec, Canada

Although the field of entrepreneurship is recognized as being of fundamental

EXECUTIVE importance for our economy, and although many researchers throughout
SUMMARY the world have turned their attention to it, there is, as yet, no agreement as
to the research object in this scientific field. Empirical research has described
the phenomenon from different standpoints. It has also shown that the phe-
nomenon is much more complex and heterogeneous than was thought in the
1980s. However, to advance knowledge and produce tools that are useful in practice, it has become neces-
sary to establish theories that will generate more productive empirical research. Some effort at definition
is therefore needed.
The definition proposed here takes a constructivist stance, and is at the service of a research project—
that of understanding or forecasting the entrepreneurial act and its success or failure, and defining more
accurately the environmental conditions favourable to that act. Here, the scientific object studied in the
field of entrepreneurship is the dialogic between individual and new value creation, within an ongoing
process and within an environment that has specific characteristics. This definition emphasizes the fact
that we will not understand the phenomenon of entrepreneurship if we do not consider the individual
(the entrepreneur), the project, the environment and also the links between them over time. It shows the
entrepreneur to be not simply a blind machine responding automatically to environmental stimuli (interest
rates, subsidies, information networks, etc.), but a human being capable of creating, learning and influ-
encing the environment.
This standpoint is consistent with the practical work done by the people responsible for helping entre-
preneurs throughout the entrepreneurial process. It also shows that the phenomenon is heterogeneous and
hence that discourse which is too general in nature will produce only truisms or artifacts, and that it is dy-
namic and sometimes unpredictable. Clearly, it would be paradoxical to suggest that the phenomenon is

Address correspondence to Christian Bruyat, École Supérieure de Affaires, B.P. 47, 38040 Grenoble
cedex, France, E-mail: BRUYAT@esa.upmf-grenoble.fr or Pierre-André Julien, Bombardier Chair,
INRPME, Université de Québec à Trois-Rivières, Québec G9A 5H7; Phone: (819) 376-5235; Fax (819) 376-
5138; E-mail: Pierre-Andre_Julien@uqtr.uquebec.ca
We thank the two referees for their particularly constructive remarks. Obviously, we are entirely respon-
sible for the application of those remarks and for the finished paper.

Journal of Business Venturing 16, 165–180

 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. 0883-9026/01/$–see front matter
655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010 S0883-9026(99)00043-9
166 C. BRUYAT AND P.-A. JULIEN

predictable and therefore situated within a deterministic framework, while at the same time admitting that
entrepreneurs have the freedom and capacity to create innovations.  2000 Elsevier Science Inc.

INTRODUCTION
Today, the field of entrepreneurship is, to a large extent, formed. It has a recognized
scientific community that expresses itself through large numbers of conferences and sci-
entific journals (Bull and Willard 1993a). However, the question raised by Sexton nearly
10 years ago (1988, p. 4) is still relevant: “Is the field of entrepreneurship growing, or
just getting bigger?” The problem of defining the word “entrepreneur” and establishing
the boundaries of the field of entrepreneurship has still not been solved. As Gartner
(1990, p. 16) wrote: “Is entrepreneurship just a buzzword, or does it have particular
characteristics that can be identified and studied?” Although it was possible in the 1980s
to say the priority was to accumulate empirical data, we now believe, like many other
authors (Vesper 1982; Brockhaus and Horwitz, 1986), that it is high time to begin devel-
oping theoretical tools to enable the field to progress.
Bygrave and Hofer (1991, p. 15) rightly pointed out that “Good science has to begin
with good definitions.” A research field can only be built and win legitimacy if it is differ-
entiated from neighbouring fields. It can only impose its presence in the long term if
it is able to establish its boundaries with other fields, even if those boundaries are, to
some extent, fuzzy. This process necessarily means that the community of researchers
must share in a given paradigm, in the sense given to the term by Kuhn (1970). A mini-
mum level of consensus is needed on the definition of what the field is and is not, on
the definition of the research object, and on its main themes, even if disagreements con-
tinue to exist on the fringes. The scientific community in a research field must also be
able to produce specific theories or theoretical frameworks. Initially, the need for differ-
entiation often leads researchers in new fields to resort to their own devices and create
their own instruments (journals and reviews, conferences, chairs, doctoral programs,
and so on). It becomes productive to open up to other disciplines or fields only after
differentiation has been achieved. When there is no consensus on a paradigm, or at least
on the main research object of the field, researchers tend to speak after one another,
rather than to one another (Greenfield and Strickon 1986), and knowledge cannot be
accumulated. Anarchy or epistemological ecumenism may lead to confusion, and the
field does not progress. Its social legitimacy is therefore threatened.
The goal of this paper is to propose a definition of entrepreneurship as a research
field. In fact, it does not propose a new definition—this would be impossible and quite
useless, since there are already so many—but instead attempts to reformulate the pro-
posals already made by researchers in the field. It therefore aims for theoretical integra-
tion at the service of the scientific community. This new perspective should result in
the opening of new avenues for research, leading to a better understanding of the phe-
nomenon. We begin by situating the problem, and then go on to the expose our proposal.
The paper ends with consideration of the main consequences of this new perspective
andfor research methods in the field of entrepreneurship.

THE PROBLEM
We will not go back over previous research on the subject (see Bull and Willard 1993b
for a good review), except to say that Cantillon, Turgot, Say and Schumpeter laid the
foundations for today’s dominant positions concerning the entrepreneur.
 ENTREPRENEURSHIP RESEARCH 167

• Cantillon: The entrepreneur is someone who assumes the risk and may legiti-
mately appropriate any profits.
• Turgot and Say: The entrepreneur is different from the capitalist, who assumes
the risk or uncertainly1—the entrepreneur obtains and organizes production fac-
tors to create value.
• Schumpeter: The entrepreneur performs the function of innovation that enables
the liberal system to persist by going beyond its contradictions.
The debate is therefore not new. However, all four of the authors cited above worked
in an economic perspective, and make no attempt to define a new field of research.
Today, two basic trends exist and stand in opposition to one another in the scientific
community of entrepreneurship (Baumol 1993). The first of these, developed from the
work of Turgot and Say, considered the entrepreneur to be the person who creates and
develops new business of any kind. The second takes the view of Cantillon and Schum-
peter, that is that the entrepreneur is an innovator, and therefore a relatively exceptional
person who changes the economy in some way or another.
To escape this deadlock, we must renounce essentialism or the reification of the
entrepreneur as something that exists outside a scientific project. The reification of sci-
entific objects necessarily leads to sterile squabbles (Cunningham and Lischeron 1991)
which often hide power struggles within a scientific community. Another way of ad-
dressing the problem of definition, from a constructivist stance,2 is to focus on the scien-
tific project shared by a community of researchers. In this way, the definition becomes
a theoretical tool, or a construct according to the objectives pursued, leading to an epis-
temological rupture between the general meaning of the words and their scientific
meaning.
In addition, like Schumpeter, we adopt a functionalist position with respect to the
problem of definition. Schumpeter does not claim to state transcendentally what the
entrepreneur is. The concept as he defines it is at the service of a theoretical approach
that enables him to show how the capitalist system is capable of going beyond its contra-
dictions by means of a creation-destruction dynamic. His approach to the entrepreneur
is purely functionalist: entrepreneurs are people who perform the function of reforming
or revolutionizing the productive system, and they continue to be entrepreneurs only
for as long as they continue to perform that function. From a constructivist standpoint,
as from a functionalist standpoint, defining a scientific object is an integral component
of the founding theoretical work in a research field.
No definition is good in itself. A definition is a construct at the service of the re-

1
G. Pelletier (1990), in a careful review of Robert Turgot’s Reflections on the Formation and Distribu-
tion of Wealth, written in 1766, shows that Turgot was the first, well before Jean -Baptiste Say, to distinguish
between the entrepreneur, who combines production factors in a new way, and the capitalist, who “provides
the funds he needs” (paragraph LXX), which Schumpeter misunderstood, a mistake that was perpetuated
by those who followed.
2
The constructivist perspective is often placed in opposition to so-called positivist science. This family
of thought draws together authors from different disciplines. Some of the founding members include the
philosophers E. Kant, A. Schopenhauer, L. Wittgenstein, and J. Searle, and psychologists J. Piaget and P.
Watzlawick. Very briefly, the positivists view the world as deterministic. There is a plan waiting to be discov-
ered by the scientists. For the constructivists, and especially in the social sciences, the world is a construct
in constant evolution that can only be approached through representations. Constructivism is concerned more
with understanding problems, while positivism is concerned more with prediction. Some authors, like sociolo-
gist of science D. Bloor, have pushed this reasoning to its extreme. Others consider both approaches to be
usable, with the choice depending on the problems to be solved and the state of knowledge at the time.
168 C. BRUYAT AND P.-A. JULIEN

search questions that are of interest to a scientific community at a given time. From
this standpoint, it can be described as “biodegradable” or transitional. It is only useful if:
(a) It can be used to build theories and carry out more effective empirical research,
in order to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon and, eventually, to make
good quality predictions;
(b) It is shared by the researchers in the field with a view to promoting the accumulation
of knowledge.
Beyond the differences, a certain number of basic ideas have to be shared by researchers
in the field of entrepreneurship:
(a) Recognition of the individual as an important or even vital element in the creation
of new value. Entrepreneurs are certainly not the only ones to create new value
for society through venture creation, in the legal sense of the term, or through inno-
vations of different kinds. However, they create a large percentage of new value,
which researchers in the field consider to be necessary for the proper operation of
our economic system.
(b) The statement that the individual is not simply a machine reacting automatically
to stimuli from the environment. The individual has the ability to learn and create,
is capable of self-finalization, and therefore has a certain freedom of action, regard-
less of whether the environment provides opportunities or places restrictions.
(c) The belief that the resources in the environment can play a faciliting or stimulating
role in helping increase the number of entrepreneurs in a region.
The project of researchers in the field of entrepreneurship is therefore to penetrate the
“black box”, in order:
(a) to understand or, if possible, predict the phenomenon of new value creation initi-
ated by individuals;
(b) to understand or “predict” their success, failure or performance.
This knowledge should enable us to promote the phenomenon and hence to increase
the wealth produced for the benefit of all, especially since small entrepreneurs have
created the vast majority of new jobs in the last decades. It should also enable us to
understand why entrepreneurship increases quickly in some regions and takes time to
emerge in others. This is the case even where the economies in question are fairly similar,
or where the general situation produces similar effects. At the same time, it will help
us understand why entrepreneurship emerges strongly at certain times and much less
so at other times. Given the scope and difficulty of this program, dissipation of the re-
search effort does not appear to serve any purpose today.

A NEW PERSPECTIVE
The proposal is based on a review of the literature published in the main entrepreneur-
ship journals, in particular the work of Gartner (1990). The review has allowed us to
define in more detail the conceptions researchers have of what is studied in the field
of entrepreneurship. The proposal is also based on the work of a number of other au-
thors, who are not cited here so as to avoid the need for a long bibliography at the end.3

3
For a more detailed description, see Bruyat (1993).
 ENTREPRENEURSHIP RESEARCH 169

For us, the entrepreneur is the individual responsible for the process of creating
new value (an innovation and/or a new organization)—in other words, the individual
without whom the new value would not be created. This new value creation forms part
of a process. Initially, it is the project of a single individual, or emerging entrepreneur
(Carter et al. 1996). Can we use the term entrepreneur at this stage, when there is intent
but as yet no new value creation? We do not think so. We would surely not describe
someone as a highly trained sportsperson if he or she had not yet obtained significant
results, as a writer if he or she had not yet begun to write a book, or as a painter if he
or she had not yet painted a picture. In adopting a functionalist standpoint, it would
therefore be preferable at this stage to use the term potential entrepreneur or devel-
oping entrepreneur (Reynolds and Miller 1992).4 Hence, at the beginning of the process
we have:
Individual (I) ⇒ New value creation (NVC)
When the project is established, it gradually places constraints on its creator. As Winston
Churchill put it, “First we shape our structures, and afterwards they shape us” (Ansoff
1989, p. 203). It vests the individuals, who, to a large extent, defines himself or herself
in relation to it. It occupies a large part of the individual’s life5 (activities, goals, means,
social status, etc.), and enables or constrains the individual to learn and change his or
her relations network. The individual builds and manages something (an enterprise, an
innovation, etc.), but is, at the same time, constrained and created by the object con-
structed. We therefore have:
Individual (I) ⇔ New value creation (NVC)
Here, we are dealing with a system or a subject/object dialogic6 that resists all attempts
at disjunctive logic. The dialogic principle defined by Morin (1989) and discussed before
by Maruyama (1974) means that two or more different elements are combined in a com-
plex way in a single unit (their logics may be simultaneously complementary, concurrent
and antagonistic), without their duality being lost in the combination. Conventionally,
the symbol ⇔ is used to signify the existence of a dialogic between two entities, showing
that they form a system that cannot be divided if it is to be understood, even though, for
utilitarian reasons, we sometimes have to isolate its components in order to analyze it.
The scientific object studied here in the field of entrepreneurship is the entrepre-
neurial system or the individual (I) ⇔ new value creation (NVC) dialogic. Moreover,
the system is a type 9 system, within the meaning given to this term by Boulding
(1956)—in other words, it is capable of learning and creating, and it also has intention.
It forms part of a process and a dynamic during which it is likely to change.
Many authors have shown that strategies and sometimes projects change signifi-
cantly, even in their very early stages (Vesper 1989; Woo et al. 1990). The system is
an open system. It interacts with its environment. To some extent, it may select and
organize it (Marchesnay and Julien 1989). It can also be stimulated by it, or by the net-
works or communities with which it interacts (Johansson, Karlsson, and Westin 1994;

4
However, different entrepreneurial projects that have not succeeded despite the time and effort in-
vested can belong to the entrepreneurship field, like a book or picture not sold by a writer or a painter.
5
Proof of this is that young entrepreneurs usually work more than 60 hours per week in the early days,
a situation that very few of them expected before they went into business.
6
Or a duel direction logic system or a system with a circular causality process.
170 C. BRUYAT AND P.-A. JULIEN

FIGURE 1 The entrepreneurial process located within its environment and time.

Conti, Malecki, and Oinas 1995). The object studied in the field of entrepreneurship (the
dialogic individual (I) ⇔ new value creation (NVC)) is shown in diagram form in Figure 1.
The diagram shows the main aspects of the phenomenon as identified by a number
of researchers (Gartner 1985): the individual, the object created (an organization and/
or an innovation), the environment and the process. The only difference between it and
the framework suggested by Gartner is that the individual and the object created are
considered to be a dialogic, and become the core element. This definition places empha-
sis on the need to consider both the individual and the project in order to understand
the phenomenon. As we will see later, this simple switch can be particularly useful.
However, two difficulties persist. The first concerns the notion of the individual.
Sometimes, value creation originates from a team, not a single individual. When the
team has a recognized leader, without whom nothing would have been possible, this
individual would uncontestably be the “entrepreneur,” and the other members of the
team, while participating in the entrepreneurial adventure, would not be considered
as entrepreneurs. But what about the value creation initiated and performed by a team
of two or three individuals, none of which is a recognized leader? This team, too, must
be considered as part of the field of entrepreneurship. If the project would clearly have
been impossible without the contribution of all team members, or if the removal of one
individual would have had the effect of wiping out the individual (I) ⇔ new value cre-
ation (NVC) dialogic, or changing it radically, then the team is the “entrepreneur.” We
therefore use the following definition of the word “individual”: “An organized, living
body with its own existence that cannot be divided without being destroyed.”
The second difficulty concerns the notion of value creation. The concept of value
is one of the classical notions of economic science. What is value, and where does it
come from? We do not need to take up this old (and somewhat outmoded) debate.
However, we can take the stance of the neoclassical economists, for whom value is ex-
pressed only through exchange, and therefore through the price established in a market.
The field of entrepreneurship would therefore be concerned with the market sector,
that is primarily the private sector and, by extension, non-profit organizations and coop-
eratives active in the private sector, together with the portion of the public sector whose
 ENTREPRENEURSHIP RESEARCH 171

activities are concerned mainly with the sale of products or services on a market. This
does not mean that entrepreneurs will not be involved in non-market exchanges, as
shown by several recent studies on the strong presence of entrepreneurship in regions
such as the Italian industrial districts, Silicon Valley and the Swiss Jurassic Arch (Pyke,
Beccatini, and Sengenberger 1990; Saxenian 1994; Maillat 1995). However, their market
transactions are generally more extensive, or at least more visible, and are vital in con-
firming their entrepreneurial nature, even when they are completed or enriched by non-
market transactions.

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

By using a constructivist approach, we define a research object without inferring the
research results. Defining the entrepreneur using attributes such as risk taking, proac-
tiveness, innovativeness (Cauthorn 1989) and the pursuit of opportunity without regard
to the resources he or she currently controls (Stevenson and Jarillo 1990) generates
confusion or leads to tautology. These same qualities may be present in many fields
outside new value creation on the market—for example, sport, art, science and so on. In
such cases, Picasso, Einstein, and the founders of “Médecins sans frontières” (Doctors
Without Borders), among others, would certainly be considered as entrepreneurs. The
goal here is not to issue value judgements. Nor are we saying that it would not be interest-
ing to compare the psychological characteristics of great entrepreneurs, social entrepre-
neurs and leading scientists or artists. Such studies are highly legitimate, and their results
would naturally be of interest to researchers in the field of entrepreneurship. However,
they would be situated in the field of psychology or social psychology, where research
is concerned with the individual alone, or with the individual in relation to a social envi-
ronment. Defining the entrepreneur as an individual (or an organization) with certain
specific features would appear to be possible only if all entrepreneurs in fact had those
features, and if those features were exclusive to entrepreneurs (i.e., to new value cre-
ators). In this case, we would be in the presence of a nomological law enabling us to
define the research object indirectly. In all probability, nobody has ever proved such
a perfect correspondence. On the contrary, the empirical evidence accumulated reveals
a broad diversity and links that are often statistically fragile. In the field of entrepreneur-
ship, not only is “Who is an entrepreneur?” the wrong question (Gartner 1988), but
the entrepreneur taken in isolation is the wrong research object.
This new perspective on the definition of the field of entrepreneurship has some
important consequences for research. We will examine some of them in the following
paragraphs. In fact, they are consistent with the thinking of many researchers in the
field today.

The Field of Entrepreneurship and Related Fields

The proposed definition of the field of entrepreneurship is complex, as is the phenome-
non itself. It is of interest only if it allows researchers to reach a minimum level of consen-
sus on what the field is and is not.
“If the boundaries of strategic management are permeable, those of entrepreneur-
ship are downright porous. No dominant paradigm exists to repel new ideas; self-
172 C. BRUYAT AND P.-A. JULIEN

appointed defenders of the faith themselves disagree on doctrine” (Sandberg 1992,

p. 78).

The originality of the field lies in both its object and its projects. Obviously, the bound-
aries between fields with closely related research objects are fuzzy, and there are dupli-
cations that may be useful for the accumulation of knowledge. At the same time, this
definition is not intended to create anathemas by establishing rigid limits. Its is, however,
intended to demonstrate the different focuses. From this perspective, differentiation
of the field of entrepreneurship from other research fields may depend either on the
research object or on the problems used. Some examples of related fields or disciplinary
perspectives will illustrate this.
Although the economists have generally ignored entrepreneurs, a handful has con-
sidered them to be important. Baumol (1993) gives some examples. However, the econ-
omists in question are interested mainly in the relations between the object created (an
enterprise and/or an innovation) and the economic environment. Their goal is not to
penetrate the “black box,” or to understand or predict the entrepreneurial event (Julien
1989). What they are trying to do is to understand the impact of this “black box,” with
its specific attributes or behaviors, on the economic environment or, conversely, to es-
tablish the environmental characteristics that are favorable or unfavorable to the phe-
nomenon.
Approaches such as the population ecology approach also form part of a project
whose goal is not to penetrate the “black box.” Obviously, all this research is legitimate
and its results may be very useful for researchers in the field of entrepreneurship.
The field of small business is close to the field of entrepreneurship, in that it recog-
nizes the importance of the manager, who is often the owner, in understanding and at-
tempting to explain small business performance. Small business researchers also try to
penetrate the “black box.” However, they focus on all enterprises that meet certain size,
control, objective, strategic, industrial or market criteria (Julien 1997). The vast majority
of these enterprises create little or no new value, although they obviously continue to
create value or “social wealth” (Venkataraman 1977, p. 121) and provide a considerable
number of jobs. Researchers in the field of entrepreneurship are concerned with the
emerging phase, at a given time in the enterprise life cycle. Although the vast majority
of the enterprises studied in the field of entrepreneurship are small, some large firms
experiencing ongoing innovative growth and led by entrepreneurs who impose their
will and vision may also form part of this field.
Innovation in strategic management is also very close to the field of entrepreneur-
ship. Here again, researchers try to penetrate the black box. However, the object studied
is not the same. An individual and an organization are not the same thing, especially
when the organization is no longer led by a single person who holds all the power. Simi-
larly, the individual is not the same thing as an innovative community, since we know
that innovation is an essentially collective phenomenon (Freeman and Soete 1990). In
concrete terms, the problems related to learning, values, culture, relations networks,
processes, behaviors and the setting of goals or objectives are not the same. If the re-
search object of entrepreneurship were the creation of innovative value, then entrepre-
neurship and innovation would be synonymous. In some papers on entrepreneurship,
it would in fact be quite possible to replace the word “entrepreneurship” with “innova-
tion,” without challenging the interest of the work (see for example Van de Ven 1993).
The resource-based approach developed in recent years in the strategic management
 ENTREPRENEURSHIP RESEARCH 173

field (Hamel and Prahalad, 1994; Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995) illustrates the interest
of researches in this field for the more proactive and innovative conceptions of organiza-
tional management. Here again, our aim is not to attack the interest or legitimacy of
these approaches, or their potential interest for researchers in the field of entrepreneur-
ship. What we are trying to do, quite simply, is to show that there is a basic difference
between the two fields of research.
If there is no agreement on a paradigm, even a minimally defined one, the field of
entrepreneurship could actually disappear. Researchers more interested in the venture
creation aspect would naturally move into the small business field, and those more inter-
ested in innovation would move towards the strategic management field, especially the
innovation sector. This would support the view of those who claim that the field of entre-
preneurship is a place for researchers who have not been able to carve out a niche for
themselves in more “noble” disciplines or fields! In other words, entrepreneurship
would become simply a meeting point for researchers from different fields.
However, the field of entrepreneurship is a fully fledged research field. It is as im-
portant for society as the other fields, and because of its specific features it is one of
the most difficult to study from a methodological standpoint.

A Heterogeneous Scientific Object within a Dynamic of Change

Entrepreneurship is concerned first and foremost with a process of change, emergence
and creation: creation of new value, but also, and at the same time, change and creation
for the individual. Figure 2 takes up the two elements of the dialogic: the individual
and new value creation. It presents a simple typology of entrepreneurial systems illus-
trating the heterogeneity of the field, and helps explain how the two main areas of sensi-
tivity are situated.
The scope of value creation can vary. Most entrepreneurs create very little new
value. Innovation, as the term is used by Schumpeter, is almost always a source of consid-
erable new value creation, at least in a modern liberal democratic economy. This is con-
sistent to some extent with the work of Baumol (1993), who distinguished “firm organiz-
ing entrepreneurs” from “innovating entrepreneurs”; although Baumol, in his economic
perspective, considered only the object created in its relationship with the economic
environment. However, the changes may also vary in importance for the individual.
They may affect the individual’s know-how, relations network, or social status, and take
concrete form for the individual in a process of learning and creation-destruction.
The diagram reveals four archetypical entrepreneurial I-NVC dialogics, thus em-
phasizing the heterogeneity of the phenomenon:
(1) Entrepreneurial reproduction: Very little new value creation, usually no innova-
tion, and very few changes for the individual. This would be the case, for example,
in the creation of a classical small, standard restaurant by a chef who goes into busi-
ness for himself after several years of experience in the field. The entrepreneur be-
comes self-employed by performing an activity that he or she already masters per-
fectly.
(2) Entrepreneurial imitation: Although there is no significant new value creation, en-
trepreneurs must make far-reaching changes in their know-how, relations networks,
and so on. The process is thus a venture, involving a great deal of uncertainly, the
learning process is likely to be long, and mistakes will be costly. Entrepreneurs must
174 C. BRUYAT AND P.-A. JULIEN

FIGURE 2 Entrepreneurship: A heterogeneous field.

learn their new trade while attempting to ensure that the business survives. The
enterprise created is the same as in the preceding case, but the creation process is
very different. For example, “entrepreneurial imitation” occurs when a big business
executive seeking a radical change of lifestyle creates a standard classical restaurant.
(3) Entrepreneurial valorization: This would be the case, for example, of an engineer
who has already developed innovative projects in a large enterprise, and who goes
on to develop a new project for himself, in a field he knows well, with good prospects
for growth. He is one of only a handful of people who really know the technology
in question, and he has a unique relations network (customers and suppliers who
trust him, future employees with rare known-how who will follow him without hesi-
tation, and so on). There is thus innovation and creation of significant new value
 ENTREPRENEURSHIP RESEARCH 175

through the valorization of the entrepreneur’s specific qualities. Long and McMul-
lan (1984) described such cases particularly well.
(4) Entrepreneurial venture: Such cases are rare (Apple, Microsoft, etc.). When they
are successful, they lead to radical changes in the environment through the creation
of a significant new value, usually an innovation, and sometimes a new economic
sector. The individual also undergoes a considerable transformation, since the ob-
ject created, in turn, generates radical change for the individual who created it. The
more significant the changes to both the project and the individual, the greater the
uncertainly. The results of the process become less predictable because they depend
on the individual’s capacity to modify known-hows and relations networks, and on
the speed with which the innovation is taken up by the environment. The two points
are connected by the dialogic. The process and timing become extremely important
in attempting to understand entrepreneurial ventures. The individual’s luck or abil-
ity to seize opportunities at the right time also plays a key role. This is a quantic
leap (Bygrave 1989) which concerns not only the innovative project, but also the
individual and the dialogic linking the individual and the project.
The diagram reveals the various defining sensitivities in the field of entrepreneur-
ship, and helps establish the areas in which consensus exists, as well as those in which
the debate continues. All researchers agree that innovative, adventurous entrepreneurs
are part of the field of entrepreneurship. Who would deny Bill Gates the right to be
called “entrepreneur?” He is the archetype of the research field. Although cases such
as his are of great economic importance, they are unfortunately extremely rare. The
other configurations are the subject of much more discussion. The less significant the
changes for the individual, and/or the smaller the new value created, the less likely it
is that the dialogic forms part of the field of entrepreneurship. Some researchers are
more interested in innovative dialogics or dialogics that create significant new value
(intrapreneurship, persistent entrepreneurs, innovative entrepreneurs, etc.), while oth-
ers focus on the changes affecting the individual (the creation of very small enterprises
where growth is not desired). These are the two main concerns of today’s scientific com-
munity.
Again, we emphasize that the diagram should be used dynamically7—as we said
earlier, this approach, like that of Schumpeter, is functionalist. A specific case will there-
fore be represented by a trajectory within the plan. If the project is successful, the entre-
preneurial phase may be destroyed by the cessation of new value creation. This happens
most frequently in cases of entrepreneurial reproduction and entrepreneurial imitation,
where the entrepreneur quickly becomes the “boss” of a small company. The I ⇔ NVC
dialogic may also disappear. This often happens in cases of innovative ventures that
are acquired by other firms, losing their entrepreneurial nature in the process (Mintz-
berg 1989).
There are many possible examples, and many possible trajectories. Some will not
last long—this is particularly true, for example, where the project fails—although others

7
We could have added a third dimension to Figure 2, by distinguishing the type of market (low, medium
or high technology) or the type of environment (benign or hostile, as explained by Covin and Slevin (1989)
in which the entrepreneur works. In such cases, it may be, for example, that imitative or reproduction entrepre-
neurs would quickly be threatened on markets with a benign environment, unless they were able to demon-
strate a more dynamic approach. In contrast, the valorization and venture entrepreneurs would benefit with
a rapid rate of technological change.
176 C. BRUYAT AND P.-A. JULIEN

may become more complex and last for several years or several decades (e.g., in the
case of persistent entrepreneurs) (Davidsson 1989). The temporal aspect appears to be
a key factor for the phenomenon as studied in the field of entrepreneurship.

A Complex Phenomenon
In the perspective presented here (see Figure 1), the phenomenon is complex, within
the meaning given to the science of complexity by Stacey (1995, p. 480).
“A science which is concerned with the dynamical properties of nonlinear and net-
work feedback systems. . . The science of complexity also provides a framework for
bringing together into an alternative perspective a number of disparate ideas (para-
dox, circular causality, positive feedback, creative destruction, spontaneous self-or-
ganization, emergence) that are to be found outside the most established perspec-
tives of the strategy processes.”

This is what empirical research on entrepreneurship shows today. It has a number of

consequences for research, including two in particular.

Determinism or Unpredictability?
By definition, complex systems may behave in ways that are very difficult to predict, and
they are sensitive to the initial conditions (Bygrave 1993). The accuracy of observations
becomes a fundamental issue in prediction. Moreover, we have here a system that, con-
trary to the classical physical phenomena, can learn, set goals, create and therefore
change. At the same time, it is highly improbable that we will ever be able to construct
a mathematical model of the phenomenon of entrepreneurship that could be used to
predict the entrepreneurial event and its performances. This is particularly true for all
cases of the entrepreneurial venture kind (see Figure 2), where there are also difficulties
related to their rarity and ex ante detection (MacMillan and Katz 1992). For this fasci-
nating part of the research field, we must leave aside the positivist paradigm and take
a constructivist stance aimed at understanding, not with a view to make predictions,
but with a view to providing tools that enable the actors to act in a more intelligent way.
Qualitative research methods must therefore be given priority, especially longitudinal
studies, since they take particular account of the system dynamic, and time becomes
an important aspect. This awareness of the need to consider complexity is present today
in the field of strategic management which, as we have shown, is close to our own (Von
Krogh et al. 1994). Conversely, for cases involving very little new value creation and
innovation (i.e., reproduction or imitation), we are dealing with a commonly occurring
phenomenon where it is possible to find statistical regularities with strong hic and nunc
validities. In cases of reproduction rather than new creation, it becomes possible to use
the Popperian paradigm, which can be productive even if the phenomenon is complex
and therefore essentially dynamic. This is in fact what Baumol (1983) showed many
years ago.

The Need to Consider the Individual and the Project Together

If we consider the research object to be the entrepreneurial system I ⇔ NVC, rooted
within a given environment, we must never lose sight of this dialogic when building
 ENTREPRENEURSHIP RESEARCH 177

research projects. This is particularly true for cases of venture innovation (Hart et al.
1995), and also for all other cases. All too often, empirical research that is too analytical
(Harvey and Evans 1995) produces disappointing results because the dialogic is not
taken into account.
To understand an entrepreneurial event, we must first understand the individual
and the project, and then the links between them throughout the start-up, survival and/
or development process, and finally the influence of the environment, and hence of other
entrepreneurs and the various resources provided by the environment. For example,
Ray (1994) clearly showed that the notion of risk was “highly contextual.”8 The same
applies to the process (Carter et al. 1996), persistence and success (Gatewood et al.
1995), and growth (Mullins 1996).

CONCLUSION
The scientific object studied in the field of entrepreneurship must be the Individual (I)
⇔ New Value Creation (NVC) dialogic. It is influenced by the environment or commu-
nity and takes place within a dynamic of internal and external change. This is consistent
with the practical work done by people who support or fund entrepreneurial ventures.
This new perspective proposed here falls within a constructivist framework (Seltsikas
and Lybereas 1996) that seems particularly appropriate for the field of entrepreneur-
ship, and especially entrepreneurial ventures. It does not involve a new definition, but
provides a theoretical integration of existing knowledge. This proposal needs to be re-
fined and discussed, and is still fairly simplistic, but it nevertheless provides a firmer
basis for discussion than a large number of partial studies. It distinguishes the field of
entrepreneurship from other research fields, to promote academic progress. It also
shows that the phenomenon is essentially a variable, heterogeneous, dynamic, and com-
plex one that is likely to be unpredictable.
Typologies constructed empirically in the absence of firm theories have highlighted
this diversity, but have now reached a deadlock. It is therefore urgent to construct cate-
gories based not on individuals or projects, but on the I ⇔ NVC dialogic. A general
discourse on the entrepreneur is bound to led to a dead-end. Although it is both possible
and desirable to develop generic patterns of the phenomenon, designed to provide the
theoretical elements needed to establish empirical problems (Bruyat 1993), it seems
to be impossible to propose a general predictive model of the entrepreneurial act and
its success.
In the field of entrepreneurship, the classical positivist paradigm and constructivism
can exist side by side, as they do in the field of strategic management (Porter 1991; Schen-
del 1994). However, the classical positivist paradigm will only be useful for the portion
of the field concerned with small changes. issues of complexity raise significant method-
ological problems, in particular because they necessarily require that the dynamic of
the systems studies (individual, new value creation, environment) be taken into consid-
eration. The field of entrepreneurship, and in particular the study of its archetype (the
entrepreneurial venture), is undoubtedly one of the most complex in the social sciences.
It therefore offers a considerable challenge to researchers in the 21st century. If we are
to take up this challenge, we will have to borrow methods and tools from other disci-

8
This had already been shown by Jean-Baptiste Say as early as 1804. See also Palich and Bagby (1995).
178 C. BRUYAT AND P.-A. JULIEN

plines and fields, and we will undoubtedly have to invent new ones. At the same time,
we must be careful not to dissipate our efforts.

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