Systemic approaches to understand entrepreneurship and strategic management

Abstract

The article aims at demonstrating the contribution potential of a systemic conceptual approach and a systemic methodological approach that are useful for research on entrepreneurship and strategic management, especially in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The use of those approaches is illustrated with real application into research seeking to explain how shared vision form and evolve in directors’ teams that administrate SMEs, a topic in great need for research. The conceptual approach is based on the concepts of vision and learning and uses soft system thinking. The methodological approach is qualitative and brings together grounded theory and critical period analysis in combination with systemic perspective as strategy for theorizing from data on processes. The results show the potential of these approaches to conduct more research.