Call for Papers: Special Issue of Small Business Economics: An Entrepreneurship Journal

Many governments around the world seem to have openly accepted the functional economic theory of entrepreneurship as a pathway toward economic development (Hannon 2006; Minniti and Lévesque 2008, p. 605). This response by governments is consistent with the argument that a shift in the economic base toward knowledge requires a context and environment supportive of entrepreneurship (Audretsch & Thurik, 2004). However, creating a context and a supportive environment tends to limit the responsibility of government (Stam 2014) and instead opens up a shared responsibility of many who nurture, encourage, support, fund, advise, facilitate and work for, or, with entrepreneurs and their ventures. In other words, the economic outcomes of entrepreneurship sought by governments and the like, are a product of not only policy inputs but also socially embedded factors that underpin the creation, growth and flourishing of new firms and organizations that, if functioning well, can ultimately deliver desirable social and economic outcomes.