Transnationalizing entrepreneurship: A critical agenda for economic geography

Abstract

This paper is concerned with entrepreneurship that takes place across borders, known as transnationalizing entrepreneurship, and its implication for economic-geographical research. It seeks to introduce geographers to a spatially informed synthesis and critique of two otherwise disparate strands of literature: entrepreneurship studies and international business studies. The silence about entrepreneurship studies in transnationalizing entrepreneurial activities and the relative lack of attention to entrepreneurship in international business studies are the key impetus for this paper. The 'flat surface' assumption of spatial ontology in these studies also points to a very fertile ground for economic geographers to develop new theoretical insights into the spatialities of entrepreneurship. The paper proposes a relational conceptualization of spaces of entrepreneurship and applies this relational perspective to the emerging research topic of transnationalizing entrepreneurship. Theoretical insights for cutting-edge economic-geographical research are developed in order to arrive at a critical agenda for future research. © 2009 SAGE Publications.