Images of Entrepreneurship and Small Business

This book tries to bring some substance to the general awareness of increasingly turbulent times and the crafting of the knowledge society. The subject – academic research into entrepreneurship and small business – reflects the need for innovation and change as well as for a more broadly distributed creation of wealth, welfare, and jobs. The form – a team of young Swedish researchers who have recently gained their doctorates – guarantees high-quality knowledge creation. The contributions focus on three fields: First, alternative qualitative approaches when studying entrepreneurship and small business; second, the particular relevance of competence development for small business; and, third, the need for a contextual approach when researching the field of entrepreneurship. The twelve authors represent university settings distributed throughout the country. This demonstrates the general recognition of entrepreneurship and small-business research in Sweden. It also announces the linkages between research and education on one hand and the field of practice on the other. Thus the book is relevant for researchers and graduate students in the field of entrepreneurship and small business as well as for both academic teaching faculties and reflective practitioners in the private and the public sectors.