Roland Condor

Understanding Entrepreneurship: Challenging Dominant Perspectives and Theorizing Entrepreneurship through New Postpositivist Epistemologies

Entrepreneurship is characterized by complex, dynamic and emergent processes, and the interplay between actors, processes, and contexts. Postpositivistic approaches offer the opportunity to examine subtleties of the phenomenon of entrepreneurship by placing emphasis on a range of its dimensions and the interplays between dimensions. Despite a growing body of postpositivistic research in response to such calls, the legitimacy of these approaches is still subject to debate on the grounds of rigor and relevance. This special issue challenges these prevailing but often hidden assumptions governing the conduct and publication of scholarly inquiry in the field of entrepreneurship and offers alternative perspectives for future research.

Is the Business Plan a Dated Instrument or an Unavoidable Step for the Entrepreneur

The business plan is an exercise required for all entrepreneurs. Its objective is to provide a framework for entrepreneurial action and obtain the necessary funds to start a new business. However, considering the time needed to prepare it and the low reliability of the forecasts on which it is built, we can doubt its usefulness for the entrepreneur. This working paper presents the exchanges that took place during a roundtable discussion on the usefulness of the business plan. Several speakers from the academic and professional communities discussed the definition of the business plan, its form and its usefulness.