The paper discusses the historical formation of entrepreneurship as an intellectual field.

Systematic entrepreneurship research only began in the 1970s and 80s. Initially research was done within the disciplines of economics, and social Sciences. However, since the 1980s, entrepreneurship has evolved toward a field of research in its own right. After the take off in the 1980s, entrepreneurship as a research field grew significantly in the 1990s, creating a strong infrastructure for research. From 2000 onwards, a search for maturation within the field could be identified, including (1) an intense debate on the domain of entrepreneurship research, (2) the division of the research community into a group of entrepreneurship researchers and another, rather scattered group of researchers interested in entrepreneurship within many different disciplines (disciplinary researchers), and (3) an increased interest in the theoretical development within the field. Three eras of entrepreneurial thinking entrepreneurship research was anchored in different theories, initially in economics (18701940), followed by the social sciences (194070) and after 1970 in management studies The economics era (18701940) Richard Cantillon gave entrepreneurship a more precise economic meaning. A basic characteristic of Cantillons analysis was the emphasis on risk and uncertainty, and he related the function of the entrepreneur to uncertainty entrepreneurship is a matter of foresight and willingness to assume uncertainty. Classical Economics - entrepreneur was essentially passive, a prudent, cautious person who adjusted to circumstances, Entrepreneurship was more or less neglected. Knight made a distinction between three types of future uncertainties risk, uncertainty, and true uncertainty that occurs when the future is not only unknown, but also unknowable with unclassifiable instances and a non- existing distribution of outcomes Knight argued that opportunities arise out of the uncertainty surrounding change if change is predictable there is no opportunity for proit and the entrepreneur receives a return for making decisions under conditions of true uncertainty. Schumpeter He noted that some energy existed within the economic system that created disequilibrium in the market. Schumpeter recognized the role of innovation in economic growth and understood that innovation had to be implemented by someone the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur creates imperfections and growth in the market by introducing innovations. Kirznerian Economic changes do not take place in a vacuum but are created by individuals awareness and understanding of a given situation. This means that the entrepreneur can be considered an agent of change, who transforms resources into useful products and services. It is fundamental for an entrepreneur to be alert in identifying and dealing with profit making opportunities (entrepreneurial alertness), i.e. the entrepreneur tries to discover opportunities for profit and helps to restore equilibrium to the market by acting on them. The entrepreneurial function involves the coordination of information, which implies identifying the gap between supply and demand, as well as acting as a broker between supply and demand, making it possible to earn money from the diference. Thus, the entrepreneur searches for imbalances in the system. In such situations, there is an asymmetry of information in the market, which means that resources are not

coordinated in an efective way. By seeking out these imbalances and by constantly trying to coordinate the resources in a more efective way, the entrepreneur leads the process toward equilibrium. Thus, Kirzner regards the entrepreneur as a person, who is alert to imperfections in the market thanks to information about the needs and resources of the diferent actors and, with the help of this information, is able to coordinate resources in a more efective way, thereby creating equilibrium Social sciences era The Psychologist and Sociologist Approach David McClelland Why do certain societies develop more dynamically than others? He argued that certain norms and values, particularly with regard to the need for achievement, are of vital importance for the development of society. Hagen He claimed that entrepreneurs tend to come from groups that suffered from a withdrawal of status, i.e. the members of some social groups perceive that their aims and values are not respected by the groups in society that they respect and whose esteem they value Entrepreneurship research conducted within the field of sociology can be related to areas such as Entrepreneurship as deviant behaviour Entrepreneurship and culture Entrepreneurship and networks One conclusion that can be drawn is that entrepreneurship research never attracted a large number of researchers within the social sciences the research was mainly conducted by a couple of individual researchers within the respective discipline, and the studies were strongly anchored within the discipline.

MANAGEMENT STUDIES ERA The 1960s and 1970s were characterized by great economic and political changes in society. It was a period of creative destruction in which new technologies were gaining ground, changes were taking place in the industrial structure, questions were being raised about the eiciency of larger companies, attitudes toward entrepreneurship and small businesses were emerging (small is beautiful became a catch phrase), and there was an increased political debate supported by politicians such as Ronald Reagan in the USA and Margaret Thatcher in the UK. The development of entrepreneurship as a research field since the 1980s can be described as three phases: (i) take-off, (ii) growth, and (iii) a search for maturation. Take Off Due to the newness of the field and its lack of identity in terms of concepts, theories and methods, it was easy for researchers from different fields of management studies to carry out research on entrepreneurship without experiencing obvious deficits in competence entrepreneurship was a low entry field in which researchers could rely on concepts and theories anchored in their home field of research. As a consequence, the research on entrepreneurship became extremely diversified, and it became a question of discovering this new phenomenon from many different angles.

This period was highly influenced by the early research on entrepreneurship, which was anchored in economics (e.g. Kirzner, Schumpeter and Knight) as well as the social sciences, i.e. contributions by economic historians, sociologists and social anthropologists (e.g. Kilby, Chandler and Cochran) and psychologists who studied the individual characteristics of the entrepreneur (e.g. McClelland, Collins et al., and Smith). Growth Phase During the 1990s migration into the field was extensive, not only from scholars within management studies but from many different disciplines in the social sciences. Entrepreneurship research grew more or less exponentially. This growth can be measured in various ways, not least in terms of the number of researchers, but also by the number of published articles, conferences and journals focusing on or opening up for entrepreneurship contributions. Four categories of researchers within the field: (i) ad- hoc transients, i.e. researchers whose publication within the field of entrepreneurship was a one off event; (ii) influential transients, i.e. researchers who publish on entrepreneurship only once, but whose work has become important for entrepreneurship research; (iii) craftsmen, i.e. researchers who frequently publish on entrepreneurship staying within the field for a longer period of time but whose influence is marginal; and (iv) core group, i.e. researchers who frequently publish on entrepreneurship and who are often cited by others. During the 1990s the vast majority of researchers within the field could be regarded as transient researchers researchers who belonged to some form of mainstream research community and who only temporarily entered the field of entrepreneurship research, whereas the core group of influential entrepreneurship researchers was fairly small. Some characteristics of this search can be identified, such as (i) a deeper discussion of central concepts and the delimitation of the research ield, (ii) a realization that entrepreneurship is a complex, heterogeneous and multi- level phenomenon, and (iii) the return of economics and psychological aspects of entrepreneurship research. Domain discussion Development of entrepreneurship into a distinct domain of research, i.e. a domain that predicts a set of empirical phenomena not explained in other ields of research, for example, newness, novelty and creation what can be termed a domain approach. In this respect, a narrow domain focus permits scholars to compare and contrast studies but means that the field becomes less inclusive and the breadth of the topics studied more limited. Second, we can find arguments that entrepreneurship should integrate with theories from other fields of research to a greater extent not least with theories in the field of strategy what can be termed an integrative approach. For a long time, strategy and entrepreneurship research have overlapped intellectually as well as in social dimensions. Many of the pioneers of entrepreneurship research also can be regarded as pioneers within the field of strategic management. The argument is that the research questions addressed by strategic management and entrepreneurship researchers are inextricably interwoven. Finally, some researchers are less concerned with the distinctiveness of the domain, regarding entrepreneurship as a phenomenon out there that can be studied from many different perspectives, pursuing various research interests such as innovation, nascent entrepreneurship, family business, venture capital, etc. arguing for what we can call a multiple- research approach.