Lessons from Team Entrepreneurship Research for General Entrepreneurship Theory

Abstract

This paper suggests that the theory of entrepreneurship needs to be amended. This paper first shows how the phenomenon of entrepreneurial teams has become established in practice and in the literature. Then the axioms of entrepreneurship theory are discussed. This paper (with a literature review and GEM data) argues that there is an inconsistency within entrepreneurship theory: in order not to have to change the axioms of entrepreneurship theory, entrepreneurial teams were assumed to consist of individual entrepreneurs. This paper explains how that impedes advances in theory development and suggests a new taxonomy of entrepreneurs: the individual entrepreneur, the individual entrepreneur in a team, and a socially minded true team entrepreneur.