ABSTRACT
The editors of this book have tasked authors to address three issues: “clearly articulate what were your most important ideas about entrepreneurship, what led you to develop those ideas into the literature, and what has been the impact of those ideas.” There is a conundrum in this request. My research is about origins: the puzzle of why and how organizations come into existence. And my immersion into the nature of organization origins has humbled me with regard to considerations about the moment of conception. Where to begin? Beginnings have the possibility of an infinite regress backwards. Isn’t there always something before “begin?” – a cause that precedes the cause? X leads to Y, but what led to X? The choice of a beginning seems so arbitrary. So, in considering this request to identify specific ideas about entrepreneurship that I would attach myself to and then to offer speculations about the causes that led me towards these ideas, well . . . this is not so simple.
