Knowledge that Transforms

Ed Merski, the founder of Niagara Paving, a successful asphalt company, must decide whether and on what terms to invite his youngest child Nancy to rejoin the family business. Nancy has worked in a number of jobs in and outside Niagara Paving and soon will graduate from a master of business administration program. Ed is concerned about how her entry will affect not only the operations of the business, but also relations among employees, including his son, Luke, who has worked for the company for the past 20 years.

The increasing number of regional concentrations of entrepreneurial activities and the shift of government–business relations to regional contexts have rendered regional governance arrangements of increasing importance. Drawing on the extensive literature on comparative models of national economic governance, this paper identifies three regional governance models: partnership, state–institutional coordination, and fragmentation. The three models are explored in the context of the entrepreneurial economy in three regions. The paper finds that regional governance arrangements differ from national varieties in the partnership and in the state–institutional models but not in the fragmented model. The difference is shown to involve the types of actors participating in governance arrangements and the types of economic activities promoted by the political–institutional context.

The mathematics of “computable economics” proves that entrepreneurship policy is unlikely to succeed if it presumes policy makers can replace the unplanned results of the entrepreneurial market process with ex ante judgments about which enterprises are best. It is mathematically impossible for policy makers or their assignees to make the required computations of opportunity costs. Some business professors dream of finding a grand algorithm that will allow them to guide entrepreneurial decisions and to judge in advance which decisions are good and which bad. The logic of computable economics, however, reveals this dream to be a form of magical thinking.

“The future is not coming to you. You fetch it! Or it goes away. Who wins and who gains from a failure Depends on who falls and who stays. It all has to do with perspective What prism that you use for a scatter. But remember: Humble or arrogant May be a bifocal matter.” (Wahlbin, 2005) This is a “mash–up” of some ideas on entrepreneurship scholarship using rhymes. The challenge was to compare and contrast special issue articles along national lines. The pondering of each country's imperative comes out through this “hip–hop” perspective. Please be assured when you read this that these rhymes are serious. There are important issues that scholars’ interest must pay, so do not let this format get in the way, using this poem as a start, of exploring entrepreneurship as science and art. Ideas from each country are beyond differences in methods quantitative and quality: Issues philosophical, rhetorical, historical, and current are the basis for the entrepreneurship field's ferment. Pay you back with interest (Clarke, Hicks, & Nash, 1966)

This article gives an overview of the specificities of entrepreneurship research in France, paying attention to its emergence, nature, and focus. Reviewing 253 articles and conference papers from two journals and two conferences, considered main outlets for research outcomes from French scholars, our findings reveal a distinctive “French touch” of entrepreneurship research. The main facets we were able to identify with our data for the 1995 to 2005 period are as follows. There is a preference for qualitative methods, conceptual contributions, and the entrepreneurial process as privileged research theme. A particular strength of the French approach is also a strong focus of small and medium–sized organizations. The “French touch” of entrepreneurship research could make a distinctive contribution to the international research community and the mainstream debate. However, mainly French–speaking dissemination of knowledge and (still) insufficient international journal–oriented output strategies limit the diffusion of French entrepreneurship research. Implications for academic institutions and future research are discussed.