Challenges to research on entrepreneurial networking in SMEs

Research on entrepreneurial networking could be regarded as an area of entrepreneurship where research has developed at a much lower pace than in entrepreneurship in general. The reasons for this phenomenon could be that researchers either avoided the area or were discouraged by an array of obstacles such as the complexity of networking, potential criticism with regard to the theoretical base or scientific methodology of the research or the multidisciplinary nature of the field. In this paper, the challenges with regard to research on entrepreneurial networking in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular will be addressed within the context of a literature review of the status of the entrepreneurship discipline at universities, the state of networking research in general and the state of entrepreneurial networking in particular. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the specific issues and challenges researchers on entrepreneurial networking in SMEs should attend to.