Volume 1, Issue 3 - Refining Our Empirical Perspectives on Entrepreneurship Research

The empirical realities of entrepreneurship research can be challenging. Measurement, theoretical scope and fit as well as sampling issues abound. To attain the highest research quality, we must strive to posit a broad theoretical view that encompasses the known aspects of entrepreneurial experiences as well as measure carefully and sample appropriately. In the lead editorial, Mike Wright and Shaker A. Zahra offer a provocative revisit of entrepreneurship’s darker side and ask probing questions. What are the real effects of entrepreneurship on our society, families and entrepreneurs, both positive and negative? In an equally thought provoking editorial “Pillow Talk Leaks” Sharon M. Danes delineates the dynamics of couples as they build and operate entrepreneurial ventures. Finally, Stephanie L. Castro carefully reexamines our usual survey measurements relative to underreporting validity, not following guidelines, and altering existing measures. The three competitive research articles epitomize the empirical refinement of our entrepreneurship research perspectives by: 1) examining how the global economic crisis can undermine structural change in developing countries relative to entrepreneurial activities; 2) providing a new examination of the returns to education in self-employment; and 3) offering a unique look at the ethical aspects of empirical studies of entrepreneurs among immigrants and ethnic minorities.

Building on a Lewis-type model of structural change and entrepreneurship we illustrate how a global economic crisis consisting of a financial and a trade shock can undermine structural change in developing countries via the start-up and innovation activities of entrepreneurs. The model analytics identifies a number of challenges for structural change in a post-crisis world, including dealing with greater bank concentration, higher costs of bank monitoring and stricter regulations and collateral requirements, flights-to-safety in global finance and reduced incentives for innovation and job-creating start-up activities.

The returns to education in self-employment are addressed in four different specifications of the relationship between log income and years of schooling. The specifications range from a standard Mincer equation with a constant percentage increase in income for an additional year of schooling to the most flexible specification with dummy variables for different combinations of years of schooling and fields of study. Based on the more flexible specifications, important non-linearities and heterogeneity in the returns to education in self-employment are found. These results are robust across different estimation methods: OLS, Heckit correction models handling sample selection, and IV dealing with the potential endogeneity of years of schooling. Moreover, the results are robust to the use of different sample years, different definitions of self-employment, and different income measures for the self-employed.

While numerous empirical studies on entrepreneurship among immigrants and ethnic minorities have been conducted all over the Western world, virtually no attention has been paid to ethical aspects of such studies. The purpose of this paper is to identify ethically ambiguous issues regarding research on ethnic/immigrant entrepreneurship, as well as propose methods for addressing such issues. The ethical issues and relevant solutions have been derived from empirical studies on immigrants and ethnic minorities in the fields of medicine, psychology, anthropology, sociology, and marketing, as well as from interviews with five of the leading contributors to the field of ethnic/immigrant entrepreneurship. The results of this study indicate that research on immigrant and ethnic minority entrepreneurs requires specific methodology that differs from the approaches applied in the mainstream entrepreneurship research. Evidence against ethical universalism has been found in the literature reviewed. The review of the empirical studies revealed a number of potential ethical problems which are important for conducting research on immigrants and ethnic minorities. Lower average levels of education, unfamiliarity with local culture and social context, economic dependency, links to the home country and coethnic community, special legal position, and linguistic disadvantages have been identified as potential sources of ethical ambiguity. Methods for ethical research conduct have been proposed. The need for explicit discussion of the ethical issues in the articles published in international journals has been highlighted.