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15.0 What Needs to be Done - Producing Better Research: Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in Africa

Written by: Journal of Development Entrepreneurship

Article Overview: Most researchers and policy makers have tended to use the information summarized in Table I in an isolated way. Researchers have concentrated either on the entrepreneur (e.g., Frese, 2000), the entrepreneurial firm (Jorgensen, et al., 1986), or the external environment (Buame, 1996). Rarely have they taken a holistic approach to study the combined and interactive effects of the three factors on entrepreneurial success or failure across time and space.

15.0 What Needs to be Done - Producing Better Research: Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in Africa

(Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship, Oct 2002 by Kiggundu, Moses N)

Most researchers and policy makers have tended to use the information summarized in Table I in an isolated way. Researchers have concentrated either on the entrepreneur (e.g., Frese, 2000), the entrepreneurial firm (Jorgensen, et al., 1986), or the external environment (Buame, 1996). Rarely have they taken a holistic approach to study the combined and interactive effects of the three factors on entrepreneurial success or failure across time and space. For example, Frese's (2000) five country data could be combined and reported as a single study, rather than reporting the results separately for each country. This is particularly appropriate since the focus was on the psychological and behavioral attributes of the entrepreneurs rather than the external environment.

There is a need to build a more sophisticated research-based entrepreneurial knowledge system, which provides empirical evidence of the effects of the three factors which impact entrepreneurial behavior, performance, and effectiveness. This requires more carefully designed research programs which use not only case studies, but also more controlled experimental and field studies. We need to draw on multi-dimensional, multi-method and multi-trait (MMT) approaches (Campbell, Dunnette, Lawler and Weick, 1970), and to apply more advanced research methods such as modeling, simulations, and econometric techniques (Barr, 1999), which yield strong and more widely applicable results. For example we need to know how entrepreneurial competencies combine with certain organizational forms (e.g., partnerships) in a tough business environment to affect entrepreneurial success or failure at different stages of enterprise development. Current structural reforms provide ideal conditions to study these factors as field experimental settings. This should yield practical knowledge which policy makers cannot afford to ignore.

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Article Tags: Campbell Dunnette Lawler, entrepreneur, entrepreneurial firm Jorgensen, entrepreneurial success, environment, external environment, Frese, Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship, policy makers, policy makers



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