Achieving Empirical Progress in an Undefined Field

Abstract

Investigators’ practice of sampling from different populations has hindered the progress of empirical entrepreneurship research. Reaching agreement on a narrowed definition of the field would allegedly resolve the problem. However, this paper reports on a survey of emerging empirical fields that Indicates that such fields typically narrow the range of populations they consider, and achieve an acceleration in empirical progress, without a consensus on the definition of the field. The paper therefore investigates how empirical research in entrepreneurship might become constructively focussed through an alternative approach: formalizing the criteria that Investigators use in selecting their samples.