The Sociology of Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Recent research on entrepreneurship by sociologists has focused on subsectors of the discipline rather than on entrepreneurship as a class. This review draws insights from diverse literatures to develop a sociological perspective on entrepreneurship as a whole. Until recently, the supply-side perspective, which focuses on the individual traits of entrepreneurs, has been the dominant school of research. Newer work from the demand-side perspective has focused on rates, or the context in which entrepreneurship occurs. This review emphasizes this less developed demand-side perspective-in particular, the influence of firms and markets on how, where, and why new enterprises are founded. I take stock of the differences and separation in the two perspectives and argue that sociological frameworks, an embeddedness perspective, institutional and ecological theory, and multilevel models can be used to integrate the two schools and extend their research implications.

Different Strokes of Creativity: Personality and Entrepreneurial Intent Among Workers of Telecom Industry in Nigeria

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Making Sense of Africa's Emerging Digital Transformation and its Many Futures

“…Consider for a moment opposing guidelines -or templates -in venture creation and growth which co-exist in Kenya's technology entrepreneurship sector. The one, an imported template, prompts entrepreneurs to form investor friendly ventures that are in pursuit of an exponential growth path as is typical for technology ventures (Thornton, 1999), while the other, a domestic template, instigates entrepreneurs to create ventures which follow an organic, revenue based growth model as it is more common in African economies. Both, the imported and the pre-existing templates are legitimized by a variety of actors; they, however, create tensions at the practice level.…”

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“…Dentro desse novo contexto, o próprio conceito de empreendedorismo foi revisto e alguns autores passaram a associá-lo com a criação de novas organizações (THORNTON, 1999;ALDRICH, 2005). Essa é, também, a definição adotada neste artigo.…”