Boundary conditions in early-stage venturing research: A systematic review

In this paper we problematize existing markers of entrepreneurial action as being subject to boundary conditions and we seek to make such boundary conditions explicit through the systematic scrutiny and review of empirical literature on early venturing. The value of doing so, we contend, is that by making explicit what the boundary conditions are we will be better able to develop an awareness of what may be potentially left out. More broadly, we hope to spur conversations about how we sample entrepreneurial actions in empirical studies and what this means in relation to the domain of entrepreneurship in a context that is increasingly calling for more inclusivity and contextualisation – indeed, under the theme of creating a better world together, togetherness issues from an implicit desire to be inclusive in how we treat others as well as ensuring that our research is able to capture and represent its subject matter in as comprehensive a manner as possible. We inductively develop four categories of boundary conditions for participants’ identification and recruitment in early-stage entrepreneurial research that are based on whether entrepreneurial action is being recognized and the epistemic positioning of that recognition.
Our findings reveal that there is a predominance of attributing action entrepreneurial status in a way that is:
- implied from context, whereby the latter is considered entrepreneurial; or
- implied from the expressed intentionality of the individual, or
- retrospectively inferred based on the characteristics of consequent endeavours.