Entrepreneurship and small business research: how do we get further?

Given that the long-term goal is to build a body of generalizable knowledge, so that each specific study does not have to start from scratch, I see a number of problems within the field of entrepreneurship and small business research. It should be stated from the start that the view of the problems presented here is based on the accumulated results of studies aiming at the core issues: determinants of entrepreneurship and the role of entrepreneurship and small businesses in the economy. Many, perhaps most, studies within the field are restricted to more specific issues. One example would be "The preparedness among small firm managers within a certain region for the consequences of European integration." Such studies may not suffer that much from the problems discussed here. It is my conviction, however, that also such restricted studies would be more fruitful if a larger body of (to a reasonable degree) agreed-upon general knowledge existed, and if the studies were so designed that they could add to such a body of knowledge....continues