Book Review: David B. Audretsch,Christopher S. Hayter and Albert N. Link (Eds),Concise Guide to Entrepreneurship,Technology and Innovation

Entrepreneurship literature is growing by leaps and bounds. This growth is not only in the volume of information being produced but also in terms of spread. There are so many areas within entrepreneurship that seem to be on the edge of becoming domains themselves. This makes it difficult even for the voracious academic reader to keep pace. It is in this context that a volume such as the one under review makes immense sense.

Three seasoned academics (Audretsch, Hayter and Link) have come together to identify close to 50 prominent scholars from within innovation, technology and entrepreneurship studies and to create this ambitious volume. The less than 300-page book contains 46 chapters. The introduction and the individual chapters live up to the title’s goal— concise. While at times the chapters look pithy and short, they do justice to the topic under consideration. The chapters cover significant ground within entrepreneurship, innovation and technology. In my opinion, the piece that holds the volume together is entrepreneurship. While everyone reading the book is bound to find their favourite chapter, mine was Mark Casson’s chapter on evolution of the concept of entrepreneurship. His optimism on the growth of entrepreneurship is encouraging, but his warning that it will depend on the range of evidence is equally alarming. Overdependence on one data source, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) in this case, could limit development of the discipline. While numerous efforts are underway to change this, intent can only predict behaviour, but over time actions will speak for themselves. Hope we resolve this evolutionary challenge by engaging in a lot of varied data sources and forms. The chapter by Kuratko, Audretsch and Link is equally interesting. It provides a quick overview of theories in entrepreneurship, highlighting the biggest challenge faced by the discipline.

The technology aspect of the volume focuses on its commercialisation and not on its development. This is a guide to technologists to widen their horizon on the numerous ways in which they can spread the use of their technological creations. There is a balanced discussion on technology and innovation from both the creators and disseminators of technology (universities, labs and transfer offices) and users (family business, acdemic entrepreneurs, student entrepreneurs and organisations). Though innovation is an important topic for society, it remains pretty difficult to chart its landscape. While the discussions around open innovation, disruptive technology (innovation) and radical innovation provide a starting point, there is still the lack of a general overview of innovation at large. Is this the challenge of the domain? The topic of entrepreneurship probably gets the most coverage, rightly so, considering the context of this volume. Topics around entrepreneurship include academic entrepreneurship, student entrepreneurship, nascent entrepreneurship, serial entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, public sector entrepreneurship, family business entrepreneurship and even back-door entrepreneurship. It shows how much the discipline has grown and also indicates the numerous opportunities available to deep dive into each of them. Roy Thurik’s topic on the quest for the entrepreneurial gene is a refreshing take on the topic. A number of chapters cover the topic of university research and technology transfer. Considering that there is a growing interest in promoting entrepreneurship from within the university system the world over, this seems important. The chapter on incubators and accelerators provides a good introduction to the topic. It highlights the confusion that exists amongst studies in this space and the urgent need to clarify basic questions before building further. Considering that it is a concise volume, instead of providing a long list of incubators and accelerators, the author could have discussed more of the literature and pointed to a few specific and promising areas of research.

The only topic that I thought deserved a chapter but was missing is ‘Corporate Entrepreneurship’. Considering the large volume of knowledge created around it and the great emphasis on its practice by leading organisations in the world, it is important within entrepreneurship. The topic is also important from the perspective of social stability since large organisations provide for a large share of the employment and well-being. Acting entrepreneurially (includes innovation and technology) is their only sure resource to sustain and thrive in today’s fast-changing world. But this does not make the volume any less valuable.

This is not to be read like a work of fiction in one sitting and definitely not non-fiction to be savoured on a long flight between conferences. It is a book that one would dip into whenever needed and take off from it. In this sense, it is a volume that every serious scholar must keep handy, on the desk or in the bag.

For a number of reasons, the book reflects the nature of entrepreneurship. The layout of the chapters is unorthodox. They start on the same page where the previous chapter ends. Every chapter has its own structure. Chapters range from 2 pages to about 10 pages each. They have a brief set of references. While they provide a quick overview of the aspect of entrepreneurship they intend to cover, the chapters act as signposts by pointing to important papers and books. This makes the book extremely valuable not only to early stage academics but also to senior scholars. Senior academics and libraries within entrepreneurship departments as well as those of innovation, technology, engineering and management will find this volume accessible. The style of writing in the volume does not require any previous exposure to entrepreneurship to access it. Doctoral students, especially in entrepreneurship, who are beginning their programmes, can use this volume to gain a quick overview of the terrain they are about to explore. It will help them narrow down their areas of interest and focus on the conversations taking place within them. Since doctoral programmes in entrepreneurship are young, it has always been a challenge to provide an introduction to the domain prior to students choosing their area of work study. This challenge will now be addressed with this guide.