Evaluating the legitimacy of entrepreneurship and small business as a field of study : An exploratory study in the USA

Purpose – The paper aims to clarify a debate about the legitimacy of entrepreneurship as a field of study. Katz and Kuratko continued this discussion by evaluating the legitimacy as an academic discipline. Their work extends the earlier contributions of Stephenson, Meyer, Finkle et al. , and Fiet. Their research focused on the use of secondary data to consider this research question. This study uses an empirical evaluation of the actors that form the basis of this field of study, the faculty that teach entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach – This study used an online survey to ascertain the academic background, dissertation subject, doctoral course work, teaching assignments, and research output of individuals that described themselves as entrepreneurship faculty. Findings – The results show that a significant percentage of the sample of college instructors did not have a doctorate in entrepreneurship, nor did they study entrepreneurship in their curriculum thereby potentially undermining perceptions of legitimacy. Research limitations/implications – This study was based upon feedback from 112 faculty. A test using a χ 2 goodness-of-fit showed there was no significant difference between the geographic location of respondents to non-respondents. The findings paint a distressing picture of the academic qualifications of the faculty assigned to teach entrepreneurship. In addition, the results were disappointing for the research productivity of faculty in the field. The fact that so many of them view themselves as entrepreneurship and small business faculty reinforces the significance of the findings. In general, the authors find empirical evidence in the sample that entrepreneurship and small business may not be viewed as a legitimate field due to the lack of academic credentials and the extensive professional credentials of their instructors. Practical implications – The findings demonstrate that entrepreneurship is likely not considered legitimate, in part, due to a lack of academic preparation or research productivity of instructors within the field of entrepreneurship. The lack of doctoral preparation is a critical problem. This issue would not be paramount where faculty publishing solely in the field. However, the findings demonstrate self-described entrepreneurship instructors publish in other fields of study. Thus, the fact that faculty do not solely teach in the field is also testimony to the challenges of legitimacy faced by individuals that teach entrepreneurship. Originality/value – The authors are not aware of any studies that specifically evaluate the academic background, dissertation subject, doctoral course work, teaching assignments, and research output of individuals that teach entrepreneurship.