Understanding the dynamics of entrepreneurship through framework approaches

Although entrepreneurship is not a new phenomenon, attempts to study it in a systematic manner are fairly recent. The field of entrepreneurship has evolved in a rather disjointed or seemingly random manner, and entrepreneurship has developed as a business discipline by borrowing, building upon, and adapting theoretical and conceptual work from such fields as sociology, psychology, anthropology, marketing, management, finance, organizational behavior, and engineering. And yet, it would appear that the volume of work attempting to describe, explain, and predict aspects of entrepreneurship has grown to a point where we can begin to develop a more complete and integrated picture. The purpose of this paper was to examine the various theoretical perspectives and frameworks of entrepreneurship and to offer an integrative perspective through a proposed “framework of frameworks” which ties together other existing frameworks, each of which explores a particular aspect of the overall phenomenon of entrepreneurship. The value of using a framework to explain and therefore better understand entrepreneurship is examined. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015