Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods in Entrepreneurship

Citation

Galbraith, C.S. (2010), "Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods in Entrepreneurship", Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 109-111. https://doi.org/10.1108/17506201011029537

For the past two decades entrepreneurship scholarship has generally followed the path of the social sciences. Most of the articles published in “top tier” outlets, such as JBV, ETP, JSBM, and SBE, have followed the more traditional, scientific method grounded in the seventeenth century writings of René Descartes and Francis Bacon – survey instruments are designed, sample data are gathered, hypotheses are constructed, and statistical tests are made. Yet, newer journals are now emerging that appear to be accepting of, or even actively pursuing, a more qualitative and perhaps richer path to entrepreneurial research. In fact, a quick review of the first two volumes of the Journal of Enterprising Communities revealed that almost 70 percent of the published articles were “qualitative” in nature, oftentimes employing ethnographic methodologies. A common criticism leveled toward these qualitative approaches, however, is that they lack in sophistication and rigor. Correcting this concern is one of the primary themes of the Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods in Entrepreneurship. As Helle Neergaard and John Ulhel, the editors of this volume point out:

This handbook can be perceived as a response to the trend and critique directed at the entrepreneurship field for producing, (i) predominantly descriptive research, and (ii) qualitative research of doubtful standard (p. 2).

The volume consists of 18 chapters ranging from in‐depth philosophical arguments to discussions of various methodologies, such as ethnography, discourse analysis, action research, verbal histories, and content analysis to practical recommendations for publishing qualitative studies.

Chapter 1 by William Bygrave sets the foundation for the volume by discussing the dominant entrepreneurship paradigms. Chapter 2, by Richard Blundel takes a more philosophical approach, and discusses “critical realism” as a basis for qualitative research methodologies. Many of the chapters, in fact, have strong philosophical orientations. Chapter 3, by Henrik Berglund, for example, focuses on the various phenomenological arguments of Edmund Huseerl and Martin Heidegger, and the fact that entrepreneurship is a “lived experience”. Within this context, the chapter offers phenomenological‐grounded methods and protocols for entrepreneurship research. Similar in its philosophical approach, Robert Smith and Alistair Anderson examine semiotics in entrepreneurial research. The application of semiotic methodologies, by its very nature, forces the researcher to look at the symbols, signs, images, metaphors, texts, and ultimately the language surrounding entrepreneurship.

A common theme that echoes throughout the volume is that qualitative research is grounded in the epistemology of social constructivism and post‐modernism thought. Social constructivism, as described by Helen Ahl in Chapter 9, means that “research not only describes and explains reality, but is also part of the reality‐constructing process” (p. 216). In another chapter, Leona Achtenhagen and Friederike Welter discuss different approaches to discourse analysis that are relevant for entrepreneurship research, with particular attention toward understanding the information presented in media.

Part III of the book consists of five chapters that emphasize techniques for gathering information. Chapter 10 by Helle Neergaard looks at sampling issues in qualitative research, while in the following chapter Ethel Brundin discusses different “real‐time” methodologies for collecting empirical material. Brian McKenzie builds on this by examining different techniques for collecting verbal histories, noting that collecting such histories are a “particular form of ethnography” (p. 310). This chapter comes closest to providing a “tool set” and protocol that ethnographic researchers in entrepreneurship would find useful. In Chapter 13, authors Ingrid Wakkee, Paula Englis and Wim During, provides a specific example of qualitative empirical research – a “content analysis” of a firm's e‐mails to study the role of networking in a global start‐up process. This chapter also presents a useful protocol and discusses some of the analytical software, such as Nvivo, that can assist in the management of the naturally unstructured information that comes from qualitative research.

While the volume does a commendable job in presenting the different philosophical perspectives that underpin qualitative research and a sampling of qualitative methodologies, perhaps the two most important questions are covered in Part IV. First, what constitutes “good qualitative research?” Caroline Wigren, in Chapter 15 directly targets this question. She examines how quality judgment criteria shifts as one moves from a traditional scientific research perspective to a social constructivist perspective to a post‐modernist perspective. The criteria outlined by Wigren should be considered a standard when reviewing qualitative studies. The chapter also specifically examines the quality criteria in ethnographic studies, a methodology becoming increasing prevalent in the emerging fields of ethnic and indigenous entrepreneurship. As a nice follow‐up, the next chapter by Anne Bollingroft examines quality criteria in observation studies from a critical realist perspective. The second question examined in this section is, “how to get qualitative research published?” Chapter 17, by Robert Smith and Alistair Anderson, and Chapter 18 by Candida Brush, directly address this frustrating, yet critically important question. Several recommendations are offered, but perhaps the most insightful, yet straightforward, is publishing in “lesser ranked” journals, since “such journals can take more risks and welcome well‐written research that dares to be different” (p. 448).

This volume is not so much a compilation of tools or protocols, but more a volume that provides the underlying theoretical and philosophical grounding for qualitative research. Clearly all the authors practice in this field, and to their credit they often direct the reader toward more toolbox types of resources, often Sage Publications or books in the linguistics, anthropology, and communications literature. Clearly, the Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods in Entrepreneurship is an important contribution to the field, and should be referenced in any paper using qualitative methodologies to investigate the entrepreneurial phenomenon.