Studying Entrepreneurship as an Institution

Abstract

The authors propose a research agenda based on the premise that entrepreneurship can and should be viewed as an institution. This approach assumes that typical structures and processes involved in founding new businesses reflect common social understandings held by members of a group about the value of entrepreneurship and how it should be undertaken. It also assumes that these behavioral patterns and social understandings vary by geographic region and over time. An important task in furthering entrepreneurship research based on this approach is identifying key dimensions along which such institutional variation occurs. Here, the authors discuss two main dimensions that we argue merit more focused attention: modes of entry and modes of governance. Drawing on existing literature, they offer a number of hypotheses about conditions that are likely to be associated with group-level variation in each of these dimensions, and the impact of such variations on organizational outcomes.