Looking Back at 20 Years of Entrepreneurship Research: What Did We Learn?

Abstract

As one of the participants of the first RENT conference in 1987, and one of those who have stayed in this field of research, I was invited to deliver a keynote address at the 20th anniversary in December, 2006. This short chapter is largely based on that keynote address. What will follow are some personal and hopefully provocative, yet constructive, reflections on the development of the field of entrepreneurship research with a particular eye to European contributions. Before proceeding I should emphasise that I have not undertaken a systematic review of the past 20 years of research, and despite the title I am going to confine my discussion about what we have learnt to a few fundamental ways in which research results have made us rethink the entrepreneurship phenomenon and how it can be researched. I will then turn to the (remaining) challenges of entrepreneurship research and reflect on the past and future roles of European research in this field.