Participant selection in early stage entrepreneurship research: a systematic review and ontological analysis

In the quest to account for the early entrepreneurial process and better theorise on all the forms it may take, we conduct our literature search on three premier entrepreneurship journals. Our initial sample is composed of a total of 901 papers (ETP=326, JBV=417 and SEJ=158). Our findings respond to the question “what are the ontological assumptions in sampling early stage venturing?”

From our inductive analysis, we find that there are four categories of ontological assumption guiding sampling choices. These are:
Declarative Entrepreneurial Action
Ascribed Entrepreneurial Action
Retrospectively Inferred Entrepreneurial Action
Non-denominational Action

We find that the dominant, intention-led approach could reframe some of its sampling in order not to exclude participants on the basis of non-reported intention. The action-orientated research could take license from this overview and enquire into more diverse contexts where the footprint of entrepreneurial action may have been left by protagonists unaware they are leaving such tracks and are thus unobserved in the entrepreneurship literature.