Who Avoids Entrepreneurship Scholarship?

Abstract

Some scholars assert that entrepreneurship has attained “considerable” legitimacy. Others assert that it “is still fighting” for complete acceptance. This study explores the question, extrapolating from studies of an “elite effect” in which the publications of the highest ranked schools differ from other research intensive schools. It finds that the legitimacy deficit is highly specific. Compared with major research business schools, the most elite business schools in the U.S., but not the U.K., are found to allocate significantly more publications to mathematically sophisticated “analytical” fields such as economics and finance, rather than entrepreneurship and other “managerial” fields. The U.S. elites do not look down upon entrepreneurship as such. They look down upon journals that lack high mathematics content. Leading entrepreneurship journals, except Small Business Economics (SBE), are particularly lacking. The conclusion argues that SBE can help the field’s legitimacy, but that other journals should not imitate analytical paradigms.