Necessity Entrepreneurship - (Research in the Sociology of Organizations) (Hardcover)

About the Book

Necessity entrepreneurship is broadly understood as the identifying and seizing of business opportunities to address one's basic needs such as food and shelter. This volume collectively proposes new ways of seeing, theorizing, and researching necessity entrepreneurship.

Book Synopsis

Necessity entrepreneurship is broadly understood as the identifying and seizing of business opportunities to address basic needs such as food and shelter. This volume proposes new ways of seeing, theorizing, and researching necessity entrepreneurship.

Scholars from across the management field expand our collective understanding, presenting necessity entrepreneurship not just as an economic process but as a cluster of cognitive, communal, and institutional processes aimed at coping with various dimensions of necessity. Challenging and revising foundational assumptions underlying prior necessity entrepreneurship research, chapters unpack necessity entrepreneurs' inhabited cognitive processes, highlighting community-level insights on necessity entrepreneurship beyond the individual-level perspective that still dominates many necessity entrepreneurship studies.

This volume showcases novel theoretical framework and methodological approaches, ranging from quantitative measurement through artificial intelligence-based methods of visualization to qualitative-interpretative accounts, preparing the next stage of necessity entrepreneurship studies.

Review Quotes

Necessity Entrepreneurship: Getting Beyond the Binary, edited by Sophie Bacq, Katrin Smolka, Angelique Slade Shantz and Pursey Heugens, offers profound insights into necessity entrepreneurship, a widespread and growing phenomenon around the globe. This comprehensive volume is invaluable for scholars, practioners and policy-makers eager to delve into the intricacies of necessity-driven entrepreneurial activities. The editors of the volume and authors of the chapters represent a compelling blend of experts in necessity entrepreneurship and/or related areas. The aim of the volume is to challenge orthodox perspectives dichotomizing necessity and opportunity entrepreneurship to provide a revisionist view that captures the wide variety in the creation of organizations out of need. The volume is unique in that it not only provides new and compelling conceptual frameworks from a variety of perspectives, including institutional, communal and cognitive notions, but also new holistic ways of viewing necessity combined with innovative methods which will aid scholars researching this critical topic. For anyone invested in necessity entrepreneurship, this book is an essential read, providing not just knowledge, but the inspiration to explore new paradigms within the field.

--John C Dencker, D'Amore-McKim School of Business, Northeastern University

An excellent book, that offers a much-needed novel perspective on necessity entrepreneurship. The editors put together a great group of international scholars, who provide fascinating evidence on how to theorize, study, narrate and visualize necessity entrepreneurship. For me, a must-read for all those interested in pushing the boundaries of the entrepreneurship research field.

--Friederike Welter, Institut für Mittelstandsforschung Bonn and University of Siegen

Necessity entrepreneurship is a widespread phenomenon. Yet, in spite of its empirical importance, researchers - just like the broader public - have shown much stronger interest in "glamorous" types of entrepreneurial activity such as venture capital-backed startups. The present RSO volume seeks to counter this stark imbalance by putting the spotlight squarely on necessity entrepreneurs - from a phenomenological, a theoretical as well as a methodological perspective. I am convinced that the intriguing set of articles published in this volume will inspire many scholars to take up research on necessity entrepreneurship!

--Marc Gruber, Professor of Entrepreneurship & Technology Commercialization, EPFL

This volume offers a much-needed expansion of our understanding of necessity entrepreneurship by bringing multiple new lenses to bear. The insights offered move us beyond the dichotomy of person- or situation-centered explanations to weave a richer story that accounts for cognition, culture, and institutional factors. In addition to diverse array of empirical contexts, the volume also offers thoughtful critique and recommendations for how scholars can engage with stronger methods and better measurements in the study of necessity entrepreneurship. Edited by noted scholars Bacq, Smolka, Slade Shantz, and Heugens, this volume offers scholars a new set of theoretical and methodological tools to advance our shared understanding of a complex and growing global phenomenon.

--Jill Purdy, University of Washington, Tacoma

About the Author

Sophie Bacq is Professor of Social Entrepreneurship and Coca-Cola Foundation Chair in Sustainable Development at IMD, Switzerland.

Katrin M. Smolka is Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, UK.

Angelique F. Slade Shantz is Associate Professor of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Management, University of Alberta, Canada.

Pursey P.M.A.R. Heugens is Professor of Organization Theory at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, The Netherlands.