An Evolutionary Approach to Entrepreneurship

This much-needed book draws together Howard Aldrich's key contribution to entrepreneurship research over recent decades. In an original introduction, the author first lays out the evolutionary approach, examining the assumptions and principles of 'selection logic' that drive evolutionary explanations. The book then expands on evolutionary theory as applied to entrepreneurship, emphasizing the role of historical and comparative analysis before focusing on the importance of social networks, particularly as they affect the genesis of entrepreneurial teams. Professor Aldrich takes a strategic approach to the creation of new organizational populations and communities, using examples from the commercialization of the Internet and the collapse of the Internet bubble. The book then presents his contributions to gender and family, offering a 'family embeddedness' perspective before focusing on the implications of entrepreneurship for stratification and inequality in modern societies, combining an evolutionary with a life course perspective. Finally, he concludes the book with another original essay, reflecting on future directions for entrepreneurship research.

This mix of groundbreaking papers that introduced new concepts into the entrepreneurship literature will prove invaluable to scholars - graduate students and faculty members - interested in research on entrepreneurship. Professors of entrepreneurship and strategy as well as academics teaching organizational sociology courses will also find plenty of invaluable information in this important resource.