Towards integration:

understanding entrepreneurship
through frameworks
Michael H. Morris, Donald F. Kuratko and Minet
Schindehutte

Abstract: While the area of entrepreneurship has grown dramatically in

recent years, both in terms of courses taught and the volume of research
undertaken, the field has historically relied heavily on other disciplines for
much of its content. More recently, a body of core content has emerged within
the field of entrepreneurship, although in a somewhat disjointed fashion. This
article attempts to integrate this content into a series of frameworks. The
frameworks themselves are not presented as comprehensive, instead demon-
strating a useful approach for teaching and conducting research on some of
the more salient topics within the field. An integrative ‘framework of frame-
works’ is also proposed. This integrative perspective is presented as the
potential foundation for a theory of entrepreneurship. The application of the
frameworks perspective in a variety of contexts is examined.
Keywords: frameworks; new venture models; opportunity assessment;
resource management
Michael H. Morris holds the Cintas Chair in Entrepreneurship and is Director of the Page Center for
Entrepreneurship, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056, USA. Tel: +1 513 529 1211. E-mail:
morrism3@muohio.edu. Donald F. Kuratko is the Stoops Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship
with the Entrepreneurship Program, College of Business, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306,
USA. Tel: +1 765 285 5327. Minet Schindehutte is Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Page
Center for Entrepreneurship, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056, USA. Tel: +1 513 529 1208.

The notion of the individual who, often against signifi-
cant odds, develops and implements a unique concept
for capitalizing on opportunity, is not new. However,
entrepreneurship in the twenty-first century has its
distinguishing characteristics (Morris, 1998; Small
Business Administration, 1998). There is more entrepre-
neurial activity in general, as the entry barriers to
entrepreneurship are generally lower today than has
historically been the case. Money is more readily
available, resources are more accessible, market oppor-
tunities are more plentiful, and downside risks are
generally less severe. Today’s entrepreneurs can do far
more with less, at least in terms of resources that they
actually own and control. They are also more able to
start and grow a business of sizeable proportions in a
relatively short period of time.
The current age of entrepreneurship is defined by
more than an increase in activity. It represents a funda-
mental change in ways of thinking about business, life
and the environments in which people and ventures
operate. The focus is on individual responsibility and
personal choice, on the microcosm rather than the
macrocosm, where approaches are bottom-up rather than
top-down, and small units in alliance can outperform
large organizations that rely on scale and control (Miner,
2000; Morris, 1998; Timmons, 1999). Terms such as
devolution, downsizing, decentralization and empower-
ment attempt to capture this movement away from the
concentrated centre to the diversity of the individual.
The pervasive influence of entrepreneurship has
implications for those starting ventures as well as for
managers in established organizations. Thus, in estab-

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION February 2001 35

Understanding entrepreneurship through frameworks
lished firms, managers find entrepreneurship taking a
variety of forms (eg traditional R&D, venture teams,
new venture divisions, ‘skunkworks’, internal start-ups,
etc). The evidence suggests organizations that learn how
to facilitate entrepreneurship in its various forms are
more competitive and perform better than those that do
not (Zahra and Covin, 1995). On the other hand, execu-
tives are increasingly involved in acquiring
entrepreneurial firms, losing market share to them,
spinning them off, sourcing or licensing from them,
creating them through agreements with former employ-
ees, and participating in them through joint ventures.
Accordingly, it is important that managers of all types
understand how and why the phenomenon of entrepre-
neurship occurs.
Although entrepreneurship is not a new phenomenon,
attempts to study it in a systematic manner are fairly
recent. Thus, while the term ‘entrepreneurship’ has been
in use for close to three hundred years, as a discipline
entrepreneurship remains in its infancy. Scholars
continue to debate such fundamental issues as the
definition of ‘entrepreneurship’, the nature of the
entrepreneur, the relevant unit of analysis when studying
entrepreneurship, the purpose of such research, the
environmental conditions that give rise to
entepreneurship, and much more (Amit, Glosten and
Muller, 1993). The volume of research in the area has
increased significantly in the past decade, but many
continue to note a lack of theory development, limited
development of useful conceptual frameworks, an
absence of rigour in much of the available research, and
an inability to draw generalizations from the empirical
work that is conducted (eg Ratnatunga and Romano,
1997; Shane, 2000). In fact, much of what constitutes
the study of entrepreneurship today is borrowed or
adapted from other disciplines.
The purpose of this paper is to present a series of
frameworks that explain entrepreneurship as it manifests
itself in the twenty-first century. The need for an
integrative perspective is discussed, together with
background on the value of conceptual frameworks.
Integration is provided through a proposed ‘framework
of frameworks’, which ties together 11 other frame-
works, each of which explores a particular aspect of the
overall phenomenon of entrepreneurship. The value of
these frameworks in explaining and predicting entrepre-
neurial activity in a diverse range of contexts is
examined.
Progress in entrepreneurship studies
Recognition of the importance of entrepreneurship over
the past two decades is reflected in an unprecedented
amount of attention from scholars, educators, public
36
policy makers, executives, financiers and others. Con-
sider some of the trends in the development of the field:
• It is increasingly accepted that the entrepreneurial
and managerial domains are not mutually exclusive,
but that they overlap. The former is more opportu-
nity driven, and the latter is more resource and
‘conservation’ driven (Stewart, et al, 1999).
• The availability of venture financing, including
venture capital, angel financing, microfinance and
various innovative financing techniques, emerged at
an unprecedented level during the 1990s. This avail-
ability fuelled both significant new venture activity
and extensive academic research (Amit, Brander and
Zott, 1998; Fried, Burton and Hisrich, 1998).
• Intrapreneurship, or entrepreneurship within large
organizations, and the need for entrepreneurial
cultures have gained much attention during the past
few years (Busenitz and Barney, 1997; Kuratko and
Hornsby, 1996; Zahra and Covin, 1995).
• Entrepreneurial entry strategies have been identified
that show some important common denominators,
issues and trade-offs (Ireland and Hitt, 1999).
• The great variety among types of entrepreneurs and
the methods they have used to achieve success have
motivated research on psychological aspects that
can predict future success (Baron, 1998).
• The risks and trade-offs of an entrepreneurial career,
particularly its demanding and stressful nature, have
been a subject of keen research interest relevant to
would-be and practising entrepreneurs alike
(McGrath, MacMillan and Scheinberg, 1992).
• Women and minority entrepreneurs have emerged in
unprecedented numbers. They appear to face
obstacles and difficulties different from those faced
by other entrepreneurs (Shim and Eastlick, 1998).
• The entrepreneurial spirit is universal, judging by
the enormous growth of interest in entrepreneurship
around the world in the past few years (Caruana,
Morris and Vella, 1998).
• The economic and social contributions of entrepre-
neurs and new companies have been shown to make
immensely disproportionate contributions to job
creation, innovation and economic renewal, com-
pared with the contributions made by the 500 or so
largest companies (Dennis, 1993).
• Entrepreneurial education represents the fastest
growth area in business and engineering schools.
The number of schools teaching a new-venture or
similar course, has now grown from as few as two
dozen 20 years ago to more than 700, with many of
these now offering a full curriculum in entrepreneur-
ship (Plaschka and Welsch, 1990; Vesper and
Gartner, 1997; Gartner and Vesper, 1999).
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION February 2001

Despite such trends, or perhaps because of them, the
field of entrepreneurship is evolving in a rather dis-
jointed and random manner. For instance, Ratnatunga
and Romano (1997) conducted an analysis of 725
articles and 16,720 citations in six leading entrepreneur-
ship journals. Although able to identify the main topical
areas of research, they characterized the entrepreneur-
ship field in terms of a ‘garbage can model’, in which
these topical areas reflect a loose collection of ideas
rather than a coherent structure with a shared intellectual
paradigm. Little of what is published is positioned
within a particular theoretical paradigm; nor does most
published work attempt to formulate any sort of theoreti-
cal advancement. We appear to have isolated facts, but
few principles or generalizations (MacMillan and Katz,
1993). Entrepreneurship has developed as a business
discipline by borrowing, building upon and adapting
theoretical and conceptual work from such fields as
sociology, psychology, anthropology, marketing,
management, finance, organizational behaviour and
engineering.
If entrepreneurial studies are to achieve the results
that have been attained in other sciences, the field must
begin to develop its own cohesive theories or frame-
works. Shane (2000) recently noted that:
rather than explaining and predicting a unique set of empirical
phenomenon entrepreneurship has become a broad label under
which a hodgepodge of research is housed. What appears to
constitute entrepreneurship research today is some aspect of
the setting (eg small businesses or new firms), rather than a
unique conceptual domain. As a result, many people have had
trouble identifying any distinctive contribution of the field to
the broader domain of business studies, undermining the field’s
legitimacy.
The author went on to suggest:
For a field of social science to have usefulness, it must have a
conceptual framework that explains and predicts a set of
empirical phenomena not explained or predicted by conceptual
frameworks already in existence in other fields.
Yet, it would appear that the volume of work attempting
to describe, explain and predict aspects of entrepreneur-
ship has grown to a point at which we can begin to
develop a more complete and integrated picture. This
paper attempts to identify 12 key frameworks that have
been used in entrepreneurship research and to construct
a comprehensive framework that offers some organiza-
tion to the field.
Framework and knowledge development
Merriam-Webster (1999) defines a framework as ‘a
basic conceptual structure (as of ideas)’. It is a logical
and systematic way to organize phenomena. It serves to
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION February 2001
Understanding entrepreneurship through frameworks
identify the relevant variables or components that
constitute some subject area of interest, while also
bringing order or structure to these components in terms
of the ways in which they relate to one another. A
framework provides the manager with a ‘blueprint’ that
converts abstraction into order, allows prioritization of
variables or issues, and helps identify relationships. It
provides the scholar with the foundation upon which to
hypothesize, develop models and build and test theory.
Frameworks can be explanatory or predictive; they
can be descriptive or normative. At their best, they have
implications for important organizational outcomes
(Miller, 1996; Sanchez, 1993). They are conceptual in
nature, although it is possible to treat a framework as a
theory provided that it is subsequently subjected to
rigorous empirical testing (Doty and Glick, 1994). They
can be developed a priori, or in response to empirical
evidence. Once developed, they may suggest new
subclasses of the phenomenon of interest.
Virtually all fields of intellectual endeavour contain
frameworks. As an example, consider the discipline of
marketing. To the extent that marketing might be defined
as the set of activities that facilitates transactions, the
question becomes one of identifying those activities. Of
course, the set of activities that could conceivably cause
a transaction to happen are limitless, constrained only by
the marketer’s creativity. The problem is to find a way to
organize all these possibilities in a managerially (and it
is hoped, theoretically) meaningful way. Thus, the
marketing mix, or the so-called 4 Ps of product, price,
promotion and place, have been promulgated as a logical
framework for categorizing the range of possibilities.
In taking stock of what is known about the field of
entrepreneurship, a number of frameworks have been
produced, some of which have achieved fairly wide-
spread acceptance. Most notable is the variety of
frameworks or typologies used to distinguish between
different types of entrepreneurs (Bird, 1989; Gartner,
1985; Gartner, Mitchell and Vesper, 1989; Woo, Cooper
and Dunkelberg, 1991). As a case in point, Miner (2000)
distinguishes between types of people who make
effective entrepreneurs using a four-way psychological
framework. He has found that the typology can be
extended to include the venture initiation phase in
addition to firm growth and performance. Furthermore,
his framework is useful in predicting measures of
entrepreneurial propensities and skill in business plan
preparation. As such, his research provides support for
the basic theory of entrepreneurial personality.
In this paper, we propose an integrative framework for
understanding the phenomenon of entrepreneurship, and
attempt to demonstrate how this comprehensive perspec-
tive incorporates a number of the other frameworks
currently available in the field. We believe that this
37
Understanding entrepreneurship through frameworks
represents an important step towards the ultimate
objective of establishing a comprehensive typology that
is theoretically solid and that underpins further efforts to
build theories and irrefutable laws of entrepreneurship.
The proposed framework has been developed by
building on existing knowledge in the field. Its main
purpose, therefore, is not to expand theory, but to
develop a systematic overview of the critical elements
that serve to explain and predict entrepreneurial activity.
A sizeable body of research has developed that supports
individual elements of the framework as well as positive
relationships across other elements. Our contribution to
knowledge in the field of entrepreneurship is the integra-
tion of previously disparate aspects of entrepreneurship.
We seek to enhance the understanding of the field by
defining the domain of entrepreneurship and its consti-
tuting elements.
Entrepreneurship and frameworks
While others exist, we have attempted to identify 12 key
frameworks that capture the pattern, pace and timing of
entrepreneurship as it occurs in a variety of contexts and
conditions. Importantly, each framework addresses an
aspect without which entrepreneurship cannot occur.
The collective set captures the overall phenomenon of
entrepreneurship, and the elements are internally
consistent. Each has broad applicability and is time-
tested. Let us begin with a ‘framework of frameworks’.
An integrative framework
Entrepreneurship is the result of the interactions among
a number of variables. Framework 1 represents an
attempt to capture the six key variables: the process, the
entrepreneur, the environment, the business concept, the
resources and the organizational context. Figure 1 shows
an integrative framework.
At the centre of this is the process of entrepreneur-
ship, which is elaborated upon further in Framework 2.
It is generally accepted among scholars that entrepre-
neurship entails a process, and specifically, the process
of creating value by putting together a unique package
of resources to exploit an opportunity (Stevenson, et al,
1992). Pursuit of this process requires an entrepreneur
or champion. This person may or may not have origi-
nated the idea or concept, but he/she is the one who
perseveres in adapting and implementing it and realizing
some level of success or failure. Considerable work has
been done in attempting to identify sociological and
psychological characteristics of these individuals (Bird,
1989; McClelland, 1987). The evidence suggests there
are different types of entrepreneurs, that entrepreneurs
are not necessarily born or genetically predisposed to
entrepreneurship, and that some level of entrepreneurial
38
potential resides in most individuals. The environment
within which the entrepreneur operates includes macro
forces that both facilitate (eg well developed infrastruc-
ture, availability of venture capital, bankruptcy
protection) and constrain (eg monopolistic conditions,
high inflation and interest rates, onerous regulation and
taxation) entrepreneurial behaviour in general. It
provides what Baumol (1990) refers to as the ‘rules of
the game’ that determine how the entrepreneurial
impulse of individuals is channelled. The environment
also provides the specific set of conditions that create
the opportunity for a particular entrepreneurial concept.
The business concept represents a unique combination
of resources that result in a new or improved product,
service or process, a new organizational form, or the
penetration of a new market. The concept represents a
total value package. Accordingly, elements such as the
entrepreneur’s pricing approach or the distribution
method can be core elements of a successful concept.
The ability to match a concept to an opportunity is
influenced by the resources the entrepreneur is able to
muster. While financial resources tend to receive the
most attention, the abilities to identify and acquire the
appropriate human resources, distribution channels,
supply relationships, technologies, physical locations
and other types of resources are often more critical in
explaining entrepreneurial outcomes. Finally, entrepre-
neurship requires some sort of organizational context,
and this context often has implications for the type and
timing of entrepreneurial activity. Examples of such
contexts include the individual licensing inventions from
his/her garage, the home-based business, the franchise,
the partnership operating out of an incubator, the limited
liability company with dedicated premises, and the
corporate research laboratory or new venture division.
The reader will note that in Figure 1, the numbers 2–
11 have been placed in proximity to the six key
variables. Each of these numbers represents an addi-
tional framework that is critical for explaining one of the
variables that make up the overall framework, and shall
be discussed below. In this manner, the integrative
perspective represents a ‘framework of frameworks’.
The entrepreneurial process
Conceptualizing entrepreneurship as a process repre-
sents a major advance. Entrepreneurial events are easier
to understand, and likely to achieve better results when
approached as a process. The benefits of a process
approach are many. The first, and most obvious, is that
the entrepreneurial effort can be broken down into
specific stages, or steps. Although these stages will tend
to overlap, and one may periodically have to revisit an
earlier stage, they tend to evolve in a logical progres-
sion. Further, approached as a process, entrepreneurship
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION February 2001

Figure 1. An integrative framework.
is not some chance event pursued only by a selected few,
but becomes a manageable event that can be pursued by
anyone. In addition, the entrepreneurial process can be
applied in any organizational context, from the start-up
venture to the established corporation to the public
enterprise. Moreover, processes are sustainable, meaning
that entrepreneurship can be ongoing or continuous at
the individual or organizational levels.
The entrepreneurial process is illustrated in Figure 2.
This framework consists of six stages. The first two,
opportunity identification and business concept develop-
ment, represent the ideation phase of the process. The
entrepreneur is attempting to identify patterns or forces
in the environment that represent profit potential, and to
develop a creative means of capitalizing on that poten-
tial. The remaining stages are concerned with
implementation. Thus, the entrepreneur assesses and
acquires the necessary resources, implements the
concept, manages the business, and eventually harvests
the venture. While creativity is perhaps most associated
with the beginning of the process, and especially with
the development of the concept, in practice it is the
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION February 2001
Understanding entrepreneurship through frameworks
subsequent stages that often require the most innovative
and risk-taking behaviours on the part of the entrepre-
neur.
Figure 2 also provides examples of key decision
variables or alternatives that come into play at each
stage in the process. Thus, opportunities can derive from
changing demographics or process needs, among other
sources, while harvesting might involve a licensing
agreement, the decision to go public, or any number of
other means of extracting oneself and one’s returns from
the venture.
Types of entrepreneurs
The third framework is concerned with the entrepreneur.
The question, ‘who is the entrepreneur?’ has been
researched more than any other in the field of entrepre-
neurship. While there is some evidence to suggest that
entrepreneurs tend to have certain characteristics in
common, such as higher levels of achievement motiva-
tion, an internal locus of control, and a tolerance of
ambiguity, there does not appear to be a single prototype
of the entrepreneur (Bird, 1989). Rather, it may be more
39
Understanding entrepreneurship through frameworks
Figure 2. Framework of the entrepreneurial process.
helpful to recognize that there are different types or
categories of entrepreneurs. For instance, Smith and
Miner (1983) distinguish ‘craftsmen entrepreneurs’ from
‘opportunists’, with the latter being more adaptive and
growth-oriented. A more complete framework of
entrepreneurial types is presented in Table 1. Here, four
types of entrepreneurs are distinguished, including those
who focus on bold moves and are achievement-moti-
vated, those who build ventures around salesmanship
and networking, those who focus on invention and
40
Table 1. Framework of entrepreneurial types.
Personal achievers ‘Super’ sales people
Need for feedback Capacity to understand others,
Need for achievement empathize
Strong commitment Belief that social processes are
Internal locus of control important
Good at external relationship
building
Expert idea generators Belief in sales force
Build venture around new
products Real managers
Involved with high-tech Desire to take charge, compete,
companies be decisive, stand out
Desire to innovate Desire to be corporate leader,
Intelligence as source of desire for power
competitive advantage Positive attitude towards authority
Source: Miner (2000).
innovation, and those who are power-motivated and have
a desire to lead.
While a given individual might fall into more than one
category, the framework suggests the need for a fit
between the type of entrepreneur and the type of venture
he/she pursues. Further, an understanding of entrepre-
neurial type may say something about the the need for
control and, by extension, the ownership and manage-
ment structure as the venture evolves. Similarly, this
framework has implications for the relative emphasis on
growth, the way in which the venture is financed, the
types of markets the firm should enter, and a variety of
other strategic issues.
The entrepreneur’s model of the venture
It is important that the entrepreneur has an investment
model in mind when starting a venture. The framework
presented in Table 2 proposes three general models,
although hybrids certainly exist. The first is an income
model, in which the entrepreneur looks at the venture in
terms of income substitution. That is, after an initial
start-up period, and in reasonably short order, the
venture provides a regular stream of income that sup-
ports the entrepreneur’s standard of living indefinitely.
Second is a growth model. Here, the entrepreneur sees
the venture much like a high growth stock that pays few
dividends, but on which he/she will realize a major
capital gain in five years or so. The entrepreneur accepts
a deficient income, ploughs back as much as possible
and even invests additional capital to support the growth
of the business, but realizes a significant pay-off down
the road, when the venture goes public or is bought out.
The third model is more short-term. Called the specula-
tive model, the entrepreneur basically wants to start the
venture and demonstrate its economic viability in the
marketplace, only to sell it off to the best bidder. One
sees this phenomenon with a number of the ‘dot.com’
companies today.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION February 2001
 Understanding entrepreneurship through frameworks

opportunity. Thus, a better opportunity is associated with

Table 2. Framework of investment models.
customers not having established loyalties, a fragmented
The income model industry in which entry barriers can be created, ROI
t0 t1 t2 t3 t4 tn potential of 25% or more annually, capital requirements
––– –+ + + + +
initial deficient income income income income that are modest, and the availability of substantive
invest income sources of differentiation.
The growth model
t0 t1 t2 t3 t4 tn
––– ––+ –+ ––+ –+ ++++
The innovative business concept
initial no deficient def inc deficient major The business concept used to capitalize on an opportu-
invest income income plus more income capital nity requires an element of uniqueness or
investment gain
innovativeness. This uniqueness can be reflected in the
The speculative model
t0 t1 t2 t3
product or service offering of the business, or in some
––– ––+ –+ +++ operational aspect of the venture, such as the distribution
initial no marginal capital method or pricing approach. For simplicity, we will use
invest income income gain
the term ‘process innovation’ to describe unique ap-
proaches to the operational issues of the venture. Table 4
These models also have important implications for contains a framework that captures a range of product/
how the venture develops. For instance, entrepreneurs service/process innovation opportunities that can form
employing an income model often start ‘mom and pop’ the basis for a new business concept.
or ‘lifestyle’ type businesses. They are more likely to
rely on personal savings and debt, whereas those relying
on a growth model are more apt to give up some control The economics of the venture
and rely on partners and equity financing. The tendency The viability of a business concept depends on a sound
to lease and leverage resources and to outsource key profit model. A simple but effective framework for
parts of the business is likely to be greater among those ascertaining economic viability is presented in Figure 3.
using a growth or speculative model. Four considerations are examined in tandem. The
entrepreneur assesses the cost structure of the business
Evaluating an opportunity to determine whether operating leverage, or the propor-
Entrepreneurship is fundamentally opportunity-driven tion of total costs that are fixed, is high, medium or low.
behaviour. An opportunity can be defined as a favour- At the same time, average contribution margins on
able set of circumstances creating a need or an opening products and services are estimated to determine
for a new business concept. Entrepreneurs are adept at whether they are high, medium or low. In addition,
recognizing patterns or forces in the external environ- likely volumes are categorized as high, medium or
ment that combine to form opportunities. The question low. Finally, the product/service mix is evaluated to
then becomes one of determining what makes for a good determine whether margins and volumes are fairly
opportunity. standardized across the product/service mix, or
Table 3 presents a version of a framework for evaluat- whether there is room for creativity, especially in
ing opportunities developed by Jeff Timmons (1999). In terms of value-added services with potentially higher
essence, four sets of issues are considered, each consist- margins. An example would be a firm that sells copiers,
ing of a number of considerations. The first set of issues where volumes are high but margins are low as the
concerns the market, including how clearly identified is product has become more generally available. The
the need, the size of the market and growth rate, and economic model may emphasize selling the copiers at
industry structure. Second, the entrepreneur considers cost, but making healthy margins on service and sup-
economic/harvest issues, such as break-even, return on port. Thus, revenue may be split 50:50 between copiers
investment (ROI), capital requirements and exit mecha- and services, while 80% of profit comes from the
nisms. Third are competitive advantage issues, including services.
the cost structure, control over prices, the power of Putting these elements together, the entrepreneur
suppliers and distributors, ease of differentiation, and obtains an indicator of the relative attractiveness of the
barriers to entry. Other issues include the opportunity to business itself. Thus, a venture with high operating
develop or tap into networks, the existence of fatal leverage, low margins, capacity constraints that limit
flaws, and overall risk. volume, and a standardized product mix is clearly
An additional feature of the framework presented in problematic. One with low operating leverage, high
Table 3 is that examples are provided of decision criteria margins, moderate volumes, and a number of value-
for each of the variables being used to evaluate the added services for which customers would be willing to

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION February 2001 41

Understanding entrepreneurship through frameworks

Table 3. Framework for opportunity evaluation.

Stronger opportunity —————————— Weaker opportunity

Market issues
Need Identified Unclear
Customers Reachable; receptive Unreachable or loyalties
established
Payback to user/customer Less than one year Three years or more
Potential for value added High Low
or created
Likely product life Long; beyond time to recover Short; less than time to recover
investment plus profit investment
Industry structure Disorganized competition or Aggressively competitive or
emerging industry highly concentrated or
mature industry or declining
industry
Potential market size $100 million in sales Unknown or less than $10
million in sales
Market growth rate Growing at 30% to 50% or Contracting or less than 10%
more
Gross margins 40% to 50% or more; Less than 20%; volatile
sustainable
Market share attainable 20% or more; leader Less than 5%
Economic/harvest issues
Profits after tax 10% to 15% or more; durable Less than 5%; fragile
Time to:
break even Under 2 years More than 3 years
positive cash flow Under 2 years More than 3 years
ROI potential 25% or more per year Less than 15% to 20% per year
Value High strategic value Low strategic value
Capital requirements Low to moderate; fundable Very high; unfundable
Exit mechanism Present or envisioned harvest options Underdefined; illiquid investment
Competitive advantage issues
Fixed and variable costs
Production Lowest Highest
Marketing Lowest Highest
Distribution Lowest Highest
Degree of control
Prices Moderate to strong Weak
Costs Moderate to strong Weak
Channels of supply/resources Moderate to strong Weak
Channels of distribution Moderate to strong Weak
Barriers to entry
Proprietary protection/regulation advantage Have or can gain None
Response/lead time advantage Resilient and responsive; have or can gain None
Legal contractual advantage Priorietary or exclusivity None
Sources of differentiation Numerous, substantive, sustainable Few or none, nominal, replicable
Competitor’s mindset and strategies Live and let live; not self-destructive Defensive and strongly reactive
Other issues
Management team Existing, strong, proven performance Weak, inexperienced, lacking key
skills
Contacts and networks Well developed; high quality; accessible Crude; limited; inaccessible
Risk Low High
Fatal flaws None One or more

Source: Adapted from Timmons, Jeffrey (1999), New Venture Creation, 5 ed, Richard D. Irwin, Homewood, IL.

pay, would be very attractive. Multiple combinations are
possible, and the entrepreneur can use the framework to
determine how a concept would have to be adjusted to
make it viable.
Market entry strategy
Related to the business concept is the mechanism relied
upon by the entrepreneur to get into the marketplace.
Karl Vesper (1990) has coined the term ‘competitive
entry wedge’ to describe such mechanisms. The four
primary methods of entering markets are to start a new
business around a truly new product or service, to mimic
a competitor’s offering, to obtain a franchise, or to
acquire a going concern. However, supplemental
methods also exist. For example, the entrepreneur may
come across a concept on his/her travels and opt to

42 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION February 2001


Table 4. Framework of innovation types.
New to the world product or service
New to the country and/or market product or service
New to the firm product or service line that at least one
competitor is offering
Addition to a company’s existing product or service line
Product/service improvement, revision, including application of
new feature or option or change
New application of existing product or service, including
application to a new market segment
Repositioning of an existing product or service
Process improvement that leads to customer value creation,
productivity enhancement, and/or cost reduction
new administrative system or procedure
new production method
new marketing or sales approach
new customer support programme
new distribution channel or method
new logistical approach
new financing method
new pricing approach
new purchasing technique
new organizational form or structure
transfer it to some new geographic location; a customer
may guarantee the entrepreneur certain order quantities
if he/she can fill a particular need; or, one might enter
the market through a licensing or joint venture agree-
ment.
A framework for capturing the primary and supple-
mental methods of market entry is provided in Table 5.
These methods are presented as a matrix, in that the
supplemental methods can in some instances be part of
more than one of the primary methods. Thus, geographic
transfer could be a form of parallel competition, or it
could be a franchise. The Xs in Table 5 indicate the
primary wedges with which a given supplemental wedge
is likely to be associated. As can be seen, parallel
competition accounts for the largest number of these
entry wedges.
Figure 3. Economic model of the venture.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION February 2001
Understanding entrepreneurship through frameworks
Obtaining the required resources
A diversity of resources is required for successful
entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs and those who study
them tend to place most of the emphasis on money.
However, entrepreneurs with adequate financing fre-
quently fail. They may not have identified or been able
to acquire the right kind of employee, the appropriate
equipment, the correct distribution channel, or some
other key resource. The challenge, then, is twofold: first,
to determine the nature of the required resources; and
second, to find creative ways of obtaining these re-
sources.
Table 6 provides a framework that is useful in assess-
ing both sets of issues. Types of resources are presented
in the rows along the left-hand side of the figure. Re-
sources have been grouped into six categories: physical
(eg buildings, equipment), relational (eg customers,
distributors, networks), organizational (eg structures,
processes, systems), financial (eg cash, debt capacity),
intellectual and human (eg sales capabilities, R&D
skills), and technological (eg patents, licences, access to
particular technologies). These resource categories can
be captured using the acronym, ‘PROFIT’.
The columns in the framework represent strategies for
obtaining resources. These range from more conven-
tional approaches, such as outright purchase and leasing,
to borrowing, licensing, and sharing resources. In
addition, entrepreneurs may find that they can effec-
tively acquire resources through what might be called
‘internal financing’, as when receipts are accelerated,
payments are stretched, or assets are factored. Equity
might be given up in exchange for critical assets. For
those seeking to start and grow ventures in the twenty-
first century, the strategy almost always has a
‘leveraging’ component to it, where the resources of
others are used to enhance or augment the resources
owned and controlled by the entrepreneur.
Determining the appropriate financing
While finance may not always be the most critical
resource, obtaining it certainly is vital and requires a
considerable amount of the entrepreneur’s time and
effort. Much of this time is often wasted, however, in
that an angel financing deal is taken to a venture capital
firm, or private equity is sought when debt is more
appropriate. To address this likelihood, we propose the
framework presented in Table 7.
One starting point in addressing the many complex
issues surrounding the financing of a venture is to
characterize the entrepreneur and venture along key
criteria. Some of the criteria that have implications for
finance include the amount of control that the entrepre-
neur must have, the riskiness of the venture, the amount
of money needed, the upside potential of the venture,
43
Understanding entrepreneurship through frameworks

Table 5. Framework of competitive entry wedges.

Main entry wedges

New product Parallel Franchising Acquisition of
Other entry wedges or service competition going concern
Exploiting partial momentum
1. Geographic transfer X
2. Supply shortage X
3. Tapping unutilized resources X
Customer sponsorship
4. Customer contract X
5. Becoming a second source X
Parent company sponsorship
6. Joint ventures X
7. Licensing X
8. Market relinquishment X
9. Sell-off of division X
Governmental sponsorship
10. Favoured purchasing X
11. Rule changes X
Combinations

Source: Vesper, Karl (1990), New Venture Strategy, Prentice Hall, Eaglewood Cliffs, NJ.

Table 6. Framework of resource types and strategies.

Resource strategies

Partner with resource provider

Internal ‘finance’

Internal (DIY)

Ham ’n egg
Outsource
Sell equity
Purchase

Contract

License
Borrow

Barter
Lease
Share

Rent

Resource type

Physical

Relational

Organizational

Financial

Intellectual and human

Technological

44 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION February 2001

 Understanding entrepreneurship through frameworks

Table 7. Framework for prioritizing sources of finance.

Friends Gov’t Bank Private Public VC

Self & family loan loan Angels offering offering firms
Founder’s need for control High Low
X

Friends VC Private Public Gov’t Bank

Self & family Angels firms offering offering loan loan
Risk High Low
X

Public Private VC Bank Gov’t Friends

Money needed offering offering firm Angels loan loan & family Self
Much Little
X
Upside potential
control High Low
X
Growth rate/when
potential realized Fast/short Slow/long

Industry Established/ Emerging/

mature fragmented

Bargaining position Favours Favours

entrepreneur investor

how quickly that potential is reached, the type of Types of ventures

industry and technology involved with the venture, and
the bargaining positions of the entrepreneur and the
prospective financier. Each of these criteria is pictured
as a continuum inTable 7. Thus, risk and need for
control vary from high to low, while the industry varies
from mature and concentrated to emerging and frag-
mented.
The framework then requires the entrepreneur to
identify all the possible sources of finance, and to rate
them on each criterion along each continuum. In Table
7, eight sources of money have been specified, and each
is evaluated along the first two criteria, need for control
and risk. When the need for control is high, friends and
family constitute a more logical source of financing,
while a venture capital firm is less appropriate. If little
money is needed, then friends and family are the focus,
while venture capital firms become relevant when the
need exceeds $1 million or more.
Finally, the entrepreneur’s venture is positioned along
each continuum. In the hypothetical example presented
in Table 7, as noted with the Xs, the venture in question
is one in which the entrepreneur requires less control,
risk is moderate, financial needs are high, and so forth.
If these Xs are connected, a profile of the more appro-
priate sources of finance starts to emerge. In this
manner, the entrepreneur can identify the two or three
sources on which efforts should be concentrated.
Ventures themselves come in varied forms. Figure 4
provides a framework that distinguishes ventures based
on size and the aspirations of the entrepreneur. The
conventional distinction is between microenterprise,
small business, medium-sized company and large
organization. The distinctions are typically made based
on employees or revenue, but the point of demarcation
between, say, a small business and a medium-sized
company varies both by industry (eg retailing versus
information technology) and by country (eg in the USA,
small businesses can have as many as 500 employees,
while in South Africa, companies with over 200 employ-
ees are typically classified as large).
Perhaps more relevant is the distinction between
survival or marginal enterprises, lifestyle or ‘mom and
pop’ businesses, successful small firms, and high growth
ventures. Here, one is focusing on the desire for and
amount of growth being experienced by the business.
There should be a relationship between the type of
model the entrepreneur employs (see Table 2) and the
type of venture that is created, although this will not
always be the case. The entrepreneur may have a desire
for growth, but lack the necessary capabilities to manage
growth.
These different types of entities can be expected to
vary in terms of their objectives, operational sophistica-
tion, resource requirements, the nature of the challenges

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION February 2001 45

Understanding entrepreneurship through frameworks
Figure 4. Framework of types of ventures.
Sources: Small Business Administration (1990); Sexton, D.L.
and Bowman-Upton, N.B. (1991) Entrepreneurship: Creativity
and Growth, Macmillan, New York.
they confront, and their future outlook. Further, the risk–
return profile and the extent to which the principals are
more externally, rather than internally focused will
differ. While the marginal and lifestyle businesses
account for a disproportionate number of the small and
micro-businesses, the high growth ventures produce the
large majority of the new jobs, inventions and wealth
creation.
Managing through the stages of venture growth
Ventures evolve over time. They move through an
organizational life-cycle that has definable stages
(Adizes, 1988; Churchill and Lewis, 1983). Our final
framework includes two examples of life-cycle stages as
they might apply to an entrepreneurial venture (see
Figure 5). The first perspective allows for the possibility
that: (a) the small business achieves a level of success
and then disengages or adopts a ‘maintenance’ sort of
approach; or (b) it achieves a level of success whereupon
the entrepreneur emphasizes continued reinvestment and
expansion until the business realizes a take-off point at
which dramatic growth occurs. The second perspective
provides for a pre-start-up stage and a harvest stage.
The implications of the life-cycle framework are
many. As a venture evolves through the stages, levels of
risk and expected rates of return decline. The relevance
of a given financing source changes. There tends to be
an evolution from a product focus to a sales emphasis to
a marketing orientation. Tactical concerns give way to
strategic management. Vision, tenacity and entrepre-
neurial capability must evolve into an ability to create
and manage systems, controls and infrastructure.
Informality is replaced by more formal approaches to
tasks and relationships, and the management style may
move from individualistic to delegative to directive.
Life-cycles are not linear, and the transitions to stages
may in some cases come only after major disruptions in
the business. The ability to make such transitions
46
Figure 5. Frameworks of venture life-cycles.
Sources: Left — Lewis and Churchill (1991); Right — Timmons
(1990).
successfully can require fundamental changes not only
in management practice, but in the assumptions one
makes about the business and the external environment.
How frameworks assist in understanding
21st century entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship today is a complex phenomenon
involving multiple stakeholders, an array of inputs that
can be combined in innumerable ways, significant
adaptation of these inputs and combinations over time, a
variety of obstacles and constraints, and high levels of
uncertainty regarding outcomes. The ability to grasp
these complexities is enhanced with the frameworks
approach. The ‘framework of frameworks’ brings order
by first identifying the six critical factors that must come
together for entrepreneurship to occur. It is these factors
that drive the entrepreneurial process, and none can be
ignored. Further, these factors represent a collectively
exhaustive set, in that together they capture all of the
variables that impinge upon the occurrence of an
entrepreneurial event.
An individual who is considering starting or investing
in an entrepreneurial venture, outsourcing to or
partnering with an entrepreneur, or is attempting to
foster entrepreneurship within an established enterprise,
should systematically evaluate each of these six factors.
Doing so will not only enable him/her to appreciate the
nature of a particular entrepreneurial venture, but also to
understand its motivations, capabilities and require-
ments. Thus, by recognizing not only the critical role
played by the entrepreneur, but the different types of
entrepreneurs, one is better able to evaluate, set expecta-
tions and evaluate prospective and current entrepreneurs.
Similarly, an appreciation for the distinction between
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION February 2001

opportunity and concept can lead to a more realistic
assessment of venture viability.
Each of the individual frameworks can be instrumen-
tal, especially when combined, in explaining outcomes
of entrepreneurial efforts, such as the form entrepreneur-
ship takes, the degree of innovativeness demonstrated,
and the rate of growth of a venture. For instance, assume
that a venture is started by an ‘expert idea generator’,
relies on new products (new to the world and market) as
its entry wedge, employs a speculative model of the
venture, is highly leveraged in terms of resources, and is
a moderate volume/low operating leverage/high margin
business. This combination of inputs from the various
frameworks might be expected to produce a rapid
growth venture that is highly innovative and is acquired
within three years of start-up.
These frameworks can also assist in addressing the
‘why’ issues surrounding an entrepreneurial venture.
The reasons why the entrepreneur finances the venture
in a particular manner, outsources certain key functions,
or refrains from adding a given service to his/her line,
are likely to be linked to the type of model of the
venture they employ, the type of entrepreneur they are,
the way in which they define the business concept, and
the environmental conditions in which they operate.
In addition, the frameworks perspective allows for the
dynamic nature of entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurial
process itself is not static, but instead can be sustaining
and recurrent over time. The two frameworks of types of
ventures and of venture life-cycle stages suggest an
evolutionary perspective in terms of an entire array of
issues and decisions that arise over time. The framework
on types of innovation can be relevant in guiding the
evolving product/market strategy of the entrepreneurial
firm.
Finally, entrepreneurship assumes different patterns
depending on the context within which it occurs. An
added benefit of the frameworks perspective is its
applicability in a variety of contexts. The overall
framework and each of the individual ones are equally
applicable to a new or growing business in the informal
sector of a developing economy, the purchase of re-
gional franchise rights of a promising new venture in
Europe, the start-up of a high-tech venture in a research
park setting, entrepreneurial developments within the
new venture division of a large company, and entrepre-
neurship within the mainstream operations of a public
sector organization. Thus, if we consider the incidence
of entrepreneurship within a well established company,
the six variables in the overall framework remain the
relevant ones for explaining the phenomenon. The
individual variables may differ in their relative impor-
tance, or in the ways in which they are impact outcomes,
but this flexibility is an attribute of the frameworks
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION February 2001
Understanding entrepreneurship through frameworks
perspective. Hence, with corporate entrepreneurship, the
organizational context now plays a much more critical
role, the entrepreneur may be more buffered from
environmental developments, the resource acquisition
strategy is likely to differ, and the role of the individual
versus the team changes.
Summary and conclusions
More than ever, there is a pressing need to develop a
comprehensive understanding of how and why entrepre-
neurial activity occurs, the forms it takes, and the
outcomes that derive from its occurrence. This paper has
proposed a frameworks perspective for achieving such
understanding. Further, we believe that this perspective
represents an important step towards the development of
substantive theories that help explain and predict
entrepreneurial activity.
The ‘framework of frameworks’ was presented as a
way to organize the many factors that come into play as
an entrepreneurial event unfolds. Within each of the six
components that constitute this overall framework lie a
large number of issues and questions, with each compo-
nent representing a major focal point for continued
research and theory building. For instance, within the
area of the business concept lie questions about types of
business concepts, underlying components of a concept,
the requisite characteristics or success factors associated
with a good concept, and ways in which concepts evolve
over time. Additional frameworks were presented that
are associated with each of these six components. Thus,
again in the area of the business concept, we have
looked at types of innovation within the concept, the
economics of the concept, and entry strategies. While
the frameworks presented are believed to be some of the
most significant and relevant, others are available that
provide insights in each of these areas.
Entrepreneurship is a meaningful concept at the
individual, organizational and societal levels, and the
frameworks perspective is applicable at each of these
levels. Individual-level entrepreneurship has been the
focus of much of the discussion in this paper. However,
entrepreneurship within an established organization is a
function of the same factors emphasized in the frame-
works. Companies that are more entrepreneurial are
often driven to be so by the nature of their environments.
They require champions and teams, resources, a con-
cept, and management of the process. The organizational
context poses unique challenges. At the level of the
society, the frameworks perspective is valuable in
explaining why certain societies are more entrepre-
neurial than others. It can also be helpful from a public
policy vantage point, in terms of identifying where
efforts to encourage entrepreneurship should be focused.
47
Understanding entrepreneurship through frameworks
At this level, environmental variables, such as the
political, legal, logistical, institutional, economic and
financial infrastructure, become especially pertinent.
However, the other factors in the framework, such as the
availability of types of resources, the presence of
motivated and trained entrepreneurs, and business
concepts that centre around particular clusters, also
determine levels of entrepreneurial activity within a
society.
The frameworks perspective can be of value in
teaching, research and managerial practice. When
teaching entrepreneurship, the frameworks approach
captures the content of entrepreneurship better than
cases, business plans and other experiential exercises. In
fact, an entrepreneurship course can be structured
around these frameworks. With regard to research, the
frameworks offer a potential taxonomy for grouping and
prioritizing research issues. They represent an invitation
for the development of hypotheses and the formulation
of theory regarding the roles and interactions between
the variables and sub-variables represented in the
frameworks. Entrepreneurs and managers can find that
the frameworks represent a very pragmatic set of tools to
guide the creation, management and harvesting of
ventures in a wide variety of contexts.
It is hoped that this work represents a modest step
towards the development of a comprehensive theory of
entrepreneurship. The immediate need is to develop
additional frameworks to explain further each of the six
components of the integrative framework. Moreover,
there is room to improve and refine the existing sub-
frameworks. Progress in this regard will help establish a
unique discipline of entrepreneurship.
References
Adizes, Ishak (1988), Corporate Lifecycles: How and Why
Corporations Grow and Die, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs,
NJ.
Amit, Raphael, Brander, James, and Zott, Christoph (1998),
‘Why do venture capital firms exist? Theory and Canadian
evidence’, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol 13, No 6, pp
441–466.
Amit, Raphael, Glosten, Lawrence, and Muller, Eitan (1993),
‘Challenges to theory development in entrepreneurial
research’, Journal of Management Studies, Vol 30, No 5, pp
275–294.
Baron, Robert A. (1998), ‘Cognitive mechanisms in entrepre-
neurship: why and when entrepreneurs think differently than
other people’, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol 13, No 4, pp
275–294.
Baumol, William J. (1990), ‘Entrepreneurship: productive,
unproductive and destructive’, Journal of Political Economy,
Vol 98, No 5, pp 893–921.
Bird, Barbara (1989), Entrepreneurial Behaviour, Scott
Foresman, London.
Bull, Ivan, and Willard, Gary E. (1993), ‘Towards a theory of
entrepreneurship’, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol 8, No 3,
pp 183–195.
Busenitz, L., and Barney, J. (1997), ‘Differences between
48
entrepreneurs and managers in large organizations: biases
and heuristics in strategic decision-making’, Journal of
Business Venturing, Vol 12, No 1, pp 9–30.
Caruana, Albert, Morris, Michael H., and Vella, Anthony J.
(1998), ‘The effect of centralization and formalization on
entrepreneurship in export firms’, Journal of Small Business
Management, Vol 36, No 1, pp 16–29.
Churchill, Neil C., and Lewis, Virginia L. (1983), ‘The five stages
of small business growth’, Harvard Business Review, Vol 6,
No 3, pp 30–50.
Dennis, William J. (1993), A Small Business Primer, NFIB
Foundation, Washington, DC.
Doty, D. H., and Glick, W. H. (1994), ‘Typologies as a unique form
of theory building: toward improving understanding and
modeling’, Academy of Management Review, Vol 19, No 2, pp
230–251.
Fried, Vance H., Burton, Garry D., and Hisrich, Robert D. (1998),
‘Strategy and the board of directors in venture capital-backed
firms’, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol 13, No 6, pp 493–
504.
Gartner, William B. (1985), ‘A conceptual framework for describ-
ing the phenomenon of new venture creation’, Academy of
Management Review, Vol 10, No 4, pp 696–706.
Gartner, William, B., Mitchell, Terrence R., and Vesper, Karl H.
(1989), ‘A taxonomy of new business ventures’, Journal of
Business Venturing, Vol 4, pp 169–186.
Gartner, William B., and Vesper, Karl H. (1999), University
Entrepreneurship Programs, Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepre-
neurial Studies, University of Southern California, Los
Angeles, CA.
Ireland, R. Duane, and Hitt, Michael A. (1999), ‘Achieving and
maintaining strategic competitiveness in the twenty first
century: the role of strategic leadership’, Academy of
Management Executive, Vol 13, No 1, pp 43–57.
Kuratko, Donald F., and Hodgetts, Richard M. (2001), Entrepre-
neurship: A Contemporary Approach, 5 ed, Harcourt College
Publishers, Fort Worth, TX.
Kuratko, Donald F., and Hornsby, Jeffrey S. (1996), ‘Developing
entrepreneurial leadership in contemporary organizations’,
Journal of Management Systems, Vol 8, No 1–4, pp 17–27.
MacMillan, Ian C., and Katz, Jerome A. (1993), ‘Idiosyncratic
milieus of entrepreneurship research: the need for compre-
hensive theories’, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol 7, No 1,
pp 1–8.
McClelland, David (1987), ‘Characteristics of successful
entrepreneurs’, Journal of Creative Behavior, Vol 21, No 2, pp
219–233.
McGrath, Rita G., MacMillan, Ian C., and Scheinberg, S. (1992),
‘Elitists, risk takers and rugged individualists? An exploratory
analysis of cultural differences between entrepreneurs and
non-entrepreneurs’, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol 7, No
2, pp 115–136.
Merriam-Webster (1999), Collegiate Dictionary, 10 ed, Merriam-
Webster Incorporated, Boston, MA.
Miller, Danny (1996), ‘Configurations revisited’, Strategic
Management Journal, Vol 17, No 4, pp 505–512.
Miner, John B. (2000), ‘Testing a psychological typology of
entrepreneurship using business founders’, Journal of Applied
Behavioral Science, Vol 36, No 1, pp 43–70.
Morris, Michael (1998), Entrepreneurial Intensity, Quorum
Books, Westport, CT.
Plaschka, Gerhard R., and Welsch, Harold P. (1990), ‘Emerging
structures in entrepreneurship education: curricular designs
and strategies’, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice,
spring, pp 55–71.
Ratnatunga, Janek, and Romano, Claudio (1997), ‘A citation
classics analysis of articles in contemporary small enterprise
research’, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol 12, No 3, pp
197–212.
Sanchez, J. C. (1993), ‘The long and thorny way to an organiza-
tional taxonomy’, Organization Studies, Vol 14, No 1, pp
73–92.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION February 2001

Sexton, D.L., and Bowman-Upton, N.B. (1991), Entrepreneur-
ship: Creativity and Growth, Macmillan, New York.
Shane, Scott (2000), ‘The promise of entrepreneurship as a field
of research’, Academy of Management Review, Vol 25, No 1,
pp 217–226.
Shim, Soyeon, and Eastlick, Mary Ann (1998), ‘Characteristics of
Hispanic female business owners: an exploratory study’,
Journal of Small Business Management, Vol 36, No 3, pp 18–
34.
Small Business Administration (1998), The New American
Revolution: The Role and Impact of Small Firms, Small
Business Administration, Office of Economic Research,
Washington, DC.
Smith, Neil, and Miner, John B. (1983), ‘Type of entrepreneur,
type of firm and managerial motivation: implications for
organizational life cycle theory’, Strategic Management
Journal, Vol 4, No 4, pp 325–340.
Stevenson, Howard, Roberts, Michael, and Grousbeck, H. Irving
(1992), New Business Ventures and the Entrepreneur, Irwin
Publishing, Chicago, IL.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION February 2001
Understanding entrepreneurship through frameworks
Stewart, Wayne H., Watson, Warren E., Carland, Joann C., and
Carland, James W. (1999), ‘A proclivity for entrepreneurship: a
comparison of entrepreneurs, small business owners and
corporate managers’, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol 14,
No 2, pp 189–214.
Timmons, Jeffrey (1999), New Venture Creation, 5 ed, Richard
D. Irwin, Homewood, IL.
Vesper, Karl (1990), New Venture Strategy, Prentice Hall,
Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Vesper, Karl H., and Gartner, William B. (1997), ‘Measuring
progress in entrepreneurship education’, Journal of Business
Venturing, Vol 12, No 5, pp 403–421.
Woo, Carolyn Y., Cooper, Arnold C., and Dunkelberg, William C.
(1991), ‘The development and interpretation of entrepre-
neurial typologies’, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol 6, No 2,
pp 93–114.
Zahra, Shaker A, and Covin, Jeffrey G. (1995), ‘Contextual
influences on the corporate entrepreneurship–performance
relationships: a longitudinal analysis’, Journal of Business
Venturing, Vol 10, pp 43–58.
49