Cunha, Miguel Pina e

Palma, Patrícia Jardim Trindade Martins da

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Entrepreneurship has been generating heated debates in business, politics and society, due toits major contribution for economic growth and employment creation. According to recent data, inEurope about 99.8% of all companies are small and medium enterprises, generating a substantial shareof GDP and accounting for about 60% to 70% of employment (European Commission, 2003). InPortugal, this percentage is even higher, representing about 75 %. Three main reasons explain why entrepreneurial organizations have such a positive impacton economic performance. First, entrepreneurial organizations are an important mechanism forknowledge spillover. These organizations have the capacity either to generate new knowledge or toadapt new technology and ideas developed in other enterprises. Second, entrepreneurship raisescompetition by increasing the number of enterprises (Porter, 1990). As new enterprises are created,new ideas are generated, promoting competition. A third way entrepreneurship exerts a positiveinfluence on economy is through increased variety, as entrepreneurship generates a wide variety ofnew enterprises that are specialized in some particular new product niche. As an academic field, entrepreneurship begun in the late 1970s, rooted on a wide set ofdisciplines, such as economics, psychology, management or sociology (Sexton & Landstrom, 2000).However, entrepreneurship as an academic field has been passing over multiple difficulties, giventhat no conceptual framework explaining and predicting relationships among variables exists yet. Incontrast with other sciences, entrepreneurship remains a fragmented field of study, as it is stilldefining its object of study. Several authors have argued that entrepreneurship should direct attentionmainly towards entrepreneurial opportunities (e.g. Venkataraman, 1997; Eckhardt & Shane, 2003),while others continue to focus on the individual entrepreneurs (e.g. Shook, Priem & McGee, 2003)or the creation of new ventures (Gartner, 1988). As a result, multiple concepts and theories, even that contradictory, have emerged, imposingserious obstacles to a free communication among scholars studying entrepreneurship. Embracingin such variability, entrepreneurship as an academic field is delaying the development of its ownidentity. A clear definition of “what entrepreneurship is” and “what entrepreneurship’s mainresearch interests are” is important to develop within entrepreneurial community, in order to establish3New Challanges in Entrepreneurship: Introduction to theSpecial Issuea distinctive, autonomous and legitimate field of study. Theoretical discussions as well as empiri-cal studies are thus necessary to consolidate entrepreneurship as an academic field.           While establishing its own boundaries, entrepreneurship may benefit from the exchange ofknowledge with other scientific areas. Entrepreneurship may provide valuable contributions to thefield of organizational behavior and this one can also offer important insights to entrepreneurshipresearchers. Entrepreneurship may contribute to refresh the currant state of the art on organizationalbehavior, as the majority of concepts and theories have emerged in mature and well-establishedorganizations (Katz & Gartner, 1988). Theoretical innovation may thus be facilitated while studyingentrepreneurial organizations. Moreover, because entrepreneurial organizations are younger and smallerthan mature organizations, they are more flexible, innovative and prepared to change (Rauch & Frese,2000). As such, some interesting organizational hypothesis can better be studied in entrepreneurialcontexts. On the other hand, entrepreneurship may also benefit from the theoretical background oforganizational behavior. For instance, leadership, which is one of the well-developed researchtopics in organizational behavior, may help to explain how entrepreneurs create a compellingvision of the organization, convincing employees to embrace entrepreneur’s ventures. Similarly,decision-making has also been considered a central topic on the field of organizational behavior, and,if applied within entrepreneurship, may help to understand how specific persons recognize opportu-nities and create entrepreneurial organizations (Baron, 2002). Besides leadership and decisionmaking, other topics from organizational behavior may also promote a better understanding ofprocesses and variables in entrepreneurship, such as motivation or strategy, just to name a few.          With this in mind, this special issue on “New Challenges in Entrepreneurship” was preparedwith the purpose of generating synergies between organizational behavior and entrepreneurship,trying to contribute to an enrichment of both areas. This special issue of ComportamentoOrganizacional e Gestão (COeG) includes both theoretical and empirical papers that cover a widevariety of topics in entrepreneurship, focusing on macro, micro and meso-level analysis of thephenomenon. Some of the papers introduce novel variables and approaches on the field, whereasothers are highly systematic, contributing to a clarification of concepts as well as the centralassumptions of entrepreneurship. In the first paper, Adelaide Baeta, Candido Borges and Diane Tremblay address the role ofincubators on the success of entrepreneurial organizations. Incubators have received ampleattention in the literature on entrepreneurship due to its major importance to entrepreneurial organizations,particularly during its start-up phase. In this study, the authors evaluate the properties of technology-based incubators in Brazil, in order to implement international entrepreneurship. Their work ana-lyzes on what extent Brazilian technology-based incubators are skilled and prepared to implementinternational entrepreneurship.In the second paper, Dana Redford stresses another topic that has generated vigorous debatein the field: education in entrepreneurship. The author presents a study that was conducted inPortugal. More specifically, Dana Redford analyses the programs being offered by Portugueseuniversities during the 2004/2005 academic year, in order to provide a picture of the state ofeducation on entrepreneurship in Portugal. Based on this analysis, insightful actions can be implemented.4In the third paper, Pedro de Carvalho and Luis González examine the entrepreneurialintention concept, which has been considered one of the most important variables predicting thecreation of entrepreneurial ventures. The authors build a model of entrepreneurial intention, coveringa wide set of entrepreneur’s personal characteristics and institutional environment. In the fourth paper, Andreia Leiria, Patrícia Palma and Miguel Cunha discuss the implicitexpectations and beliefs that both the entrepreneur and his team develop about each other, a subjectmatter that has received little attention in entrepreneurship research. Using a qualitative approach,the authors analyze how psychological contracts are perceived by both the entrepreneur and histeam and examine what are the main factors responsible for the development of those psychologicalcontracts in an entrepreneurial enterprise. The conclusions of this study may contribute to a moreadequate management of expectations within entrepreneurial organizations, in order to increasemotivation among individuals.        In the fifth paper, Anabela Dinis and Ana Maria Ussman present an extensive literaturereview of entrepreneurship, with a useful systematization of the field. The most influential approachesof entrepreneurship are analyzed, showing the contributions that each one has to this field of study.The authors propose an integrative framing to better understand the complex phenomenon of entre-preneurship. In this paper, the authors also suggest a new Portuguese word to define entrepreneurship,which is the term “empresarialidade”. The main advantages of using this new concept are alsodiscussed in this paper.In the sixth paper, Miguel Lopes, Miguel Cunha and Filipa Reis discuss how entrepreneurs getthe resources they need to build entrepreneurial organizations. It is a topic of major concern withinentrepreneurship as resource gathering is a recurrent constraint that entrepreneurs face to create anddevelop a new venture. In this paper, the authors discuss this topic by introducing a new concept inthe field of entrepreneurship: magnetic relationships. The authors also propose a framework toexplain how entrepreneurs attract the critical resources they need to create a new enterprise.In the last paper of this special issue, “Empreender na Primeira Pessoa”, Artur Nunes, anentrepreneur, presents his experience while implementing his own enterprise. Main difficulties andsuccesses are discussed as well as future directions for those who consider the hypothesis ofbecoming entrepreneurs. In sum, the collection of papers of this special issue contributes to a better understanding ofsome of the processes, variables and relationship in the field of entrepreneurship. In addition, thiscollection of papers highlights the richness of combining theories and processes from both theentrepreneurship and the organizational behavior fields. ReferencesBaron, R. (2002). OB and Entrepreneurship: The Reciprocal Benefits of Closer Conceptual Links. Researchin Organizational Behavior, 24, 225-269.Eckhardt, J., & Shane, S. (2003). Opportunities and Entrepreneurship. Journal of Management, 29 (3), 333--349.5European Commission (2003). Observatory of European SMEs, n.º 7.Gartner, W. (1988). “Who is an entrepreneur” is the wrong question? Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice,12 (2), 47-68.Katz, J., & Gartner, W. (1988). Properties of Emerging Organizations. Academy of Management Review, 13(3), 429-441.Porter, M. (1990). The Comparative Advantage of Nations. New York: Free Press. Rauch, A., & Frese, M. (2000). Psychological Approachs to Entrepreneural Success: A General Model and AnOverview of Findings. In C. L. Cooper, & I. T. Robertson (Eds.), International Review of Industrialand Organizational Psychology (Vol. 15). Chicester: John Wiley & Sons.Sexton, D., & Landstrom, H. (2000). The Blackwell Handbook of Entrepreneurship. Malden, MA:Blackwell.Shook, C., Priem, R., & McGee, J. (2003). Venture Creation and the enterprising individual: A review andsynthesis. Journal of Management, 29 (3), 379-399.Venkataraman, S. (1997). The distinctive domain of entrepreneurship research: An editor´s perspective. InJ. Katz, & R. Brockhaus (Eds.), Advances in entrepreneurship, firm emergence and growth (Vol. 3,pp. 119-138). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.   PATRÍCIA JARDIM DA PALMAMIGUEL PINA E CUNHA6

New Challanges in Entrepreneurship: Introduction to the special issue

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New Challanges in Entrepreneurship: Introduction to the special issue

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