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This Thing Called “Theory”

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Researching Entrepreneurship

Part of the book series: International Studies in Entrepreneurship ((ISEN,volume 33))

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Abstract

How and why can theory help us understand entrepreneurial phenomena? The contemplative nature of theory may seem antithetical to the bold action associated with entrepreneurship. Theory is important in research because it is the abstracted and reflected sensemaking of theory that makes empirical observations meaningful. However, an exaggerated focus on “theoretical contributions” can also hamper the development of a scholarly field. This chapter discusses what theory is and is not, its various roles in the research process, and the pros and cons of focusing on theory. The specific requirements on theoretical tools suitable for the study of entrepreneurship are also considered.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I normally apply this latter behavioral sequence only to printers, not computers themselves. After multiple replications, I have come to the conclusion that with respect to achieving goal attainment it is not a valid theory, or at least printers lie outside its boundaries.

  2. 2.

    I leave it to you to decide whether to fix this problem before or after fixing global warming.

  3. 3.

    Alert readers may raise an eyebrow at my embracing of the o-word here. Well, for starters, this is 25–30 years ago. Second, I here use “opportunity” as an uncountable (cf. Davidsson, 2003) to denote generally favorable circumstances and not to denote specific, preexisting entities ready to be picked and converted into successful new economic activities. My empirical items were indicators of a favorable resource situation as well as of a munificent environment.

  4. 4.

    I sometimes wonder what supernatural beliefs or sense of humor drives my fellow Swedes when they coin theoretical terms like “abduction” or “psychic distance” (Johanson & Vahlne, 2009).

  5. 5.

    A control variable is an explanatory variable that is included not because we have a theoretical interest in its effect, but because omitting it may lead to incorrect estimation of the effects of those variables we do have a theoretical interest in (Kish, 1987).

  6. 6.

    You believe providing descriptive statistics is about as low as you can get on the scale of scholarly contributions? You think such descriptions are necessarily dull, unimportant, and unlikely to have any impact in the absence of theory? Maybe think again: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezVk1ahRF78; www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU0kYxhzQvo; www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w. Don’t forget to compare the number of views with your favorite theorist’s citation stats.

  7. 7.

    It does exist elsewhere: http://editorsupdate.elsevier.com/short-communications/journal-cortex-launches-registered-reports/. Good on them!

  8. 8.

    Based on this sample of one, I happily proclaim that our research culture will rapidly approach sanity the more editors we get who have a background in entrepreneurship research!

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  1. QUT Business School, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Per Davidsson

  2. Jönköping International Business School, Jönköping, Sweden

    Per Davidsson

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Davidsson, P. (2016). This Thing Called “Theory”. In: Researching Entrepreneurship. International Studies in Entrepreneurship, vol 33. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26692-3_3

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