Introduction

Schumpeter described entrepreneurship as the quintessential example of growth, growing firms from nothing to something, and Austrian economists have continued to think along those lines. However, for most of the rest of economics, and the majority of business and government, growth and entrepreneurship have a disjointed relationship (Hébert & Link, 1989; Wennekers & Thurik, 1999). This was evident from the early days of entrepreneurship research, but with a few exceptions, it has taken the field over 60 years to seriously address and remedy the discordant relationship. The volume you hold is part of that contemporary effort.

Part of this disconnect came because economics defined growth primarily in terms of financial growth, notably by measures of sales or profits (Marcus, 1969), or by the late 1980s, employment or jobs created (Evans, 1987a). This meant that economists talked about how small and entrepreneurial businesses grew or shrunk in national, industry sector, or regional accounts (Gudgin, 1978). Rarely were firm-level, much less micro-level factors, taken into account.