A theory of venturing: A critical realist explanation of why my father is not like Richard Branson

This article presents a theory of venturing using a critical realist approach. Venturing is presented as an outcome of reflexive engagement between individuals and circumstances, where opportunity is perceived in relation to some idiosyncratically defined value. Traditionally, venturing has been considered as necessarily involving financial value orientation. Removing the primacy of financial ambitions affords better explanation of real-life business activity. Venturing is presented also as temporally informed and informing through a lifetime, and thus it influences ongoing work choices, including further venturing. The benefits to theory and practice are outlined, including informing support of disparate venturing and of entrepreneurship as a specific type.

[1]  Barbara J. Bird,et al.  The Operation of Entrepreneurial Intentions , 1989 .

[2]  I. Ajzen.  The theory of planned behavior , 1991 .

[3]  Udo H. Staber,et al.  The Decline and Rise of Self-Employment , 1991 .

[4]  Charles W. Hofer,et al.  Theorizing about Entrepreneurship , 1992 .

[5]  S. Shane,et al.  The Promise of Entrepreneurship as a Field of Research , 2000 .

[6]  J. O. Ogbor.  Mythicizing and Reification in Entrepreneurial Discourse: Ideology‐Critique of Entrepreneurial Studies , 2000 .

[7]  Jerome A. Katz,et al.  The Psychological Basis of Opportunity Identification: Entrepreneurial Alertness , 2001 .

[8]  M. Conner,et al.  Efficacy of the Theory of Planned Behaviour: a meta-analytic review. , 2001, The British journal of social psychology.

[9]  Don R Scott,et al.  Why women enter into entrepreneurship: an explanatory model , 2001 .

[10]  S. Shane.  A General Theory of Entrepreneurship , 2003 .

[11]  D. Shepherd,et al.  Aspiring for, and Achieving Growth: The Moderating Role of Resources and Opportunities , 2003 .

[12]  E. Walker,et al.  What Success Factors are Important to Small Business Owners? , 2004 .

[13]  Jerome A. Katz,et al.  Reclaiming the space of entrepreneurship in society: geographical, discursive and social dimensions , 2004 .

[14]  John Yen,et al.  Introduction , 2004, CACM.

[15]  Tom Karp.  The inner entrepreneur: A constructivistic view of entrepreneurial reality construction , 2006 .

[16]  Roger Lee.  The ordinary economy: tangled up in values and geography , 2006 .

[17]  Attitudes to growth and experience of growth among Scottish SMEs , 2006 .

[18]  P. Jansen,et al.  Autonomy as a start-up motive , 2006 .

[19]  Jeffery S. McMullen,et al.  Entrepreneurial Action And The Role Of Uncertainty In The Theory Of The Entrepreneur , 2006 .

[20]  Michael H. Morris,et al.  The Dilemma of Growth: Understanding Venture Size Choices of Women Entrepreneurs , 2006 .

[21]  Jeffery S. McMullen,et al.  The Formation of Opportunity Beliefs: Overcoming Ignorance and Reducing Doubt , 2007 .

[22]  W. Gartner,et al.  Complexity dynamics of nascent entrepreneurship , 2007 .

[23]  M. Archer.  Making our Way through the World by Margaret S. Archer , 2007 .

[24]  Richard K. Blundel,et al.  Penrose, critical realism and the evolution of business knowledge: A methodological reappraisal , 2007 .

[25]  Dimo Dimov,et al.  Beyond the Single-Person, Single-Insight Attribution in Understanding Entrepreneurial Opportunities , 2007 .

[26]  Dave Elder-Vass.  Integrating institutional, relational and embodied structure: an emergentist perspective. , 2008, The British journal of sociology.

[27]  J. Hessels,et al.  Entrepreneurial aspirations, motivations, and their drivers , 2008 .

[28]  J. Gibson‐Graham.  Diverse economies: performative practices for `other worlds' , 2008 .

[29]  J. López.  Margaret S. Archer, Making our Way through the World: Human Reflexivity and Social Mobility , 2009 .

[30]  J. Barney,et al.  Entrepreneurship and Epistemology: The Philosophical Underpinnings of the Study of Entrepreneurial Opportunities , 2010 .

[31]  Christopher L. Shook,et al.  The Concept of “Opportunity” in Entrepreneurship Research: Past Accomplishments and Future Challenges , 2010 .

[32]  D. Storey,et al.  What happens to gazelles? The importance of dynamic management strategy , 2010 .

[33]  Tony Huzzard,et al.  Employability and the ICT Worker: A Study of Employees in Scottish Small Businesses , 2010 .

[34]  Alistair R. Anderson,et al.  Enacting entrepreneurship as social value creation , 2011 .

[35]  Kelly G. Shaver,et al.  One size does not fit all: Entrepreneurial expectancies and growth intentions of US women and men nascent entrepreneurs , 2012 .

[36]  W. Gartner,et al.  Critical perspectives in entrepreneurship research , 2012 .

[37]  Stratos Ramoglou.  Who is a ‘non-entrepreneur’?: Taking the ‘others’ of entrepreneurship seriously , 2013 .

[38]  Chris Fuller.  Reflexivity, relative autonomy and the embedded individual in economics , 2013, Journal of Institutional Economics.

[39]  J. Fiet,et al.  The Relationship between Entrepreneurship Education and Entrepreneurial Intentions: A Meta–Analytic Review , 2014 .

[40]  P. Beynon-Davies,et al.  An exploration of the attitudes and strategic responses of sole-proprietor micro-enterprises in adopting information and communication technology , 2014 .

[41]  F. Sniehotta,et al.  Time to retire the theory of planned behaviour , 2014, Health psychology review.

[42]  M. Wright,et al.  Contextualization and the advancement of entrepreneurship research , 2014 .

[43]  Matthew S. Wood,et al.  Making it personal: : Opportunity individuation and the shaping of opportunity beliefs , 2014 .

[44]  Alistair R. Anderson.  Conceptualising entrepreneurship as economic 'explanation' and the consequent loss of 'understanding' , 2015 .

[45]  Toward a theory of business , 2015 .

[46]  L. Perren,et al.  SME managing director and non-executive director trust relations: The dynamic interplay between structure and agency , 2016 .

[47]  Karolos-Iosif Kavoulakos,et al.  Diverse economies and alternative spaces: An overview of approaches and practices , 2016 .

[48]  R. Suddaby,et al.  Reflexivity: The Role of Embedded Social Position and Entrepreneurial Social Skill in Processes of Field Level Change , 2016 .

[49]  Eric W. K. Tsang,et al.  A Realist Perspective of Entrepreneurship: Opportunities As Propensities , 2016 .

[50]  Lee Martin,et al.  Opportunity, discovery and creativity: A critical realist perspective , 2016 .

[51]  D. Audretsch,et al.  Institutional factors, opportunity entrepreneurship and economic growth: Panel data evidence , 2016 .

[52]  P. Davidsson.  Entrepreneurial opportunities as propensities: Do Ramoglou & Tsang move the field forward? , 2017 .

[53]  W. Gartner,et al.  Everyday Entrepreneurship—A Call for Entrepreneurship Research to Embrace Entrepreneurial Diversity , 2017 .

[54]  Eric W. K. Tsang,et al.  Accepting the unknowables of entrepreneurship and overcoming philosophical obstacles to scientific progress , 2017 .

[55]  E. Meliou,et al.  Relational practices and reflexivity: Exploring the responses of women entrepreneurs to changing household dynamics , 2018 .

[56]  Ariel Neufeld.  BUY-AND-HOLD PROPERTY FOR FULLY INCOMPLETE MARKETS WHEN SUPER-REPLICATING MARKOVIAN CLAIMS , 2017, International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance.

[57]  L. Galloway,et al.  Business, Aging, and Socioemotional Selectivity: A Qualitative Study of Gray Entrepreneurship , 2019, Journal of Small Business Management.