From Idea to Publication: Managing the Research Process

Robert Blackburn and Friederike Welter

Introduction

There are volumes of books and articles on research methods for business (eg. Bryman and Bell,

2011; Easterby-Smith et al., 2008) and some with a focus on entrepreneurship (e.g. Davidsson, 2008;

Curran and Blackburn, 2001). However, the actual process of converting a research idea into

publication and the stages in this process, is complex, subject to a variety of challenges but

ultimately rewarding. In this chapter we map out the journey from idea formulation through to

publication and draw upon our experiences in doing so. An underlying assumption of the chapter is

that there are specific issues, in terms of the knowledge base, theory development and methods,

intrinsic to the field of entrepreneurship in this journey and hence lessons that can be learned from

previous experiences.

One of the great advantages of being an academic is the relative freedom to pursue research

agendas of your choice. Yet, researchers have for some time, been under pressure to disseminate

their outputs to both academic and practitioner audiences (e.g. Hills, 1999; Harzing, 2011). There is

also a growing emphasis on academics to increase their engagement with practitioner and policy

organisations and develop research agendas, employ appropriate methods and produce results that

will achieve an impact on the economy and society. For researchers in the field, these diverse

parties of interest present significant pressures but also opportunities. Entrepreneurship research,

by its very nature, is embedded in mind sets and real world activities and involves interaction with a

variety of stakeholders and interested parties: support organisations, funding bodies, state policy
agencies and of course entrepreneurs themselves. Hence, there are numerous academic and

practitioner outlets for your work, plus a growing range of open access media through the internet.

Clearly, this expanding landscape provides lucrative opportunities for research activity. However,

generating an idea that ‘has legs’, in the sense of a publication that contributes to theory and / or

practice and has impact amongst audiences, involves going through a journey. Whilst we are not

being overly prescriptive in saying that every publication is a result of the journey we discuss in this

Chapter, being aware of the elements can help reduce uncertainty, ensure that research projects are

have a sound foundation, are approached with rigour and thus lead to publications that are more

likely to be of high quality and have impact. This is also set within a context of striving to help raise

the quality of the approaches used in entrepreneurship research and help overcome the view that it

is a relatively new field that needs to establish rigour alongside other business and management

fields (eg. Short et al., 2010).

As a starting point, we indeed accept that undertaking research is a messy process in which your

original plans are frequently challenged, or you encounter unforeseen events that seemingly

threaten the survival of the whole research project. Through the sharing of our experiences and

discussing the stages of the research process, this may help others reduce the risks involved in their

research journeys and increase the chances of producing significant and interesting research in the

field.

Figure 1 outlines the basic stages in the research process from ideas generation through to

dissemination: these stages are relatively straightforward and form the basis for the structure of the

Chapter. Yet, we would also be the first to contest the adoption of formulaic, routinised and staid

approaches to doing research, particularly in a field of study that is dynamic, contradictory and

questions many of the underlying assumptions of mainstream management theory and practice.
Figure 1 is, therefore, only a broad framework depicting the research process: given the breadth of

approaches in the field of entrepreneurship, its interpretation, application and use depends on your

own judgements and those who you work with to produce imaginative outcomes. You will also often

have to re-visit stages as your research undergoes an iterative rather than linear process of

development.

Figure 1 Schematic Stages of the Research Process

Idea gestation: what’s interesting out there?

The first step in the publication process is what we may term ‘ideas generation’. You have to identify

an idea or topic and subsequently convert this into a research question, or series of questions. This

initial phase of the research process involves the linking of a research idea to extant literature,

theory and empirical work, in order to provide clarity of objectives. Ultimately, research activity

should critically review contemporary thinking and conventional wisdom; contribute to the
knowledge and theory of field of study; and where appropriate, have an impact on policy and

practice.

The origins of research ideas in the field of entrepreneurship are multifaceted. There are

innumerable topics that the field embraces (Katz, 2003; Xheneti and Blackburn, 2011) and is

delineated from many other fields by its dynamism (Zahra and Wright, 2011). Researchers of

entrepreneurship also engage with numerous discourses: with entrepreneurs and people, private

and business orientated, and institutions surrounding them through various ties. Ideas may emerge

from previous experiences in the field, the reading of the ‘grey literature’ (newspapers, trade and

professional publications), a major government report, or a finding from a key stakeholder, such as a

bank. The conventional view that all good research projects emerge from academic journals and

books is only partially the case in a field of endeavour that is dynamic, in the sense of the pace of

change and burgeoning, in terms of scale of activity.

We have a range of experiences of ideas generation in developing research projects: from the

sharing of a germ of an idea with fellow academics, encounters with government officials and

politicians, support agencies, bank managers, business consultants and aspirant entrepreneurs and

business owners themselves – to identify but a few - that have provided an invaluable stimulus to

project ideas generation.

Box 1: An example of idea generation

Robert, in 2000 was involved in presenting research on the experiences of young entrepreneurs and

their high levels of business churn to staff of an international bank. In subsequent discussions with a

senior bank official he picked up on an interesting fact: that less than around 10% of all business

bank account closures ended in debt. This was something of a surprise given the high profile ‘failure’

stories presented in the media and much of the literature. A more detailed search of the literature
found that, at that time, we knew relatively little about the business ‘exit’ process but what did exist

tended to be rather normative rather than evidence based: hence a gap existed. Like any gap,

however, its existence may be for perfectly sound reasons: such as its triviality; or insignificance

within the context of how this fits within an understanding of the business life-cycle and

entrepreneurs’ life-journeys. In other words, we had to decide whether this was an ’itch worth

scratching’ (Booth et al., 2008)? Would there be an audience for our work? Following further

literature searches and discussion, a decision was made to study those who had recently ‘exited’

their enterprise and detailed research questions were developed. In classifying what happened to

‘exiting’ entrepreneurs, the research found that around 60% went on to run another enterprise. As a

result, the project provided a range of practical and theoretical contributions (see Stokes and

Blackburn, 2001; 2002). Key contributions to academic thinking and theorising highlighted a need to

separate out what happens to the business from the ‘exiting’ entrepreneur. The research project

was also instructive in that some practical fieldwork issues were also discussed around actually

finding people who have exited from their enterprise and the possible biases of different sources.

It is critical that a simple idea or inspiration to develop a project undergoes a literature and

‘sensibility’ check in order to avoid re-inventing the wheel. This should involve not only looking

through the appropriate journals, but also books and the grey literature. Whilst the latter is often

frowned upon by many academics as ephemera, issues that are picked up in the media are often

more immediate and can stimulate ideas for more considered, theory-informed academic research.

This may call into question some of the more restrictive ‘systematic’ literature review approaches, so

popular in contemporary research methods courses, that select only top flight academic journals and

are based on the reading of abstracts (Easterby-Smith et al., 2008). Whilst being systematic in your

research method is important, we would suggest that at the ideas formulation stage, all the

literatures that you believe to be relevant should be gleaned in your review and only later should

this then be narrowed to the specific area of investigation. This helps you to think beyond the
boundaries of what academics are already investigating in the field and helps to avoid the field

becoming overly narrow, boring and ultimately suffer from ossification. This is especially the case for

entrepreneurship research which tends to be a permeable rather than tightly focused field of study.

Box 2: From contract research to developing your own research project

One of Friederike’s main research fields developed from contract research. The German Federal

Ministry of Economics was interested in learning more about SMEs in the so-called Viségrad

countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia). Friederike’s employer won the contract;

she had recently joined the institute and was asked to work on the project team. At that time

(1993/94) little was known about the emergence, nature and problems of SMEs in the newly

emerging market economies. A literature review provided few insights, so it had to be combined

with a survey in the four study countries and personal visits to interview entrepreneurs and policy

makers who were eager to learn from the Western researchers. Over time, several projects

followed, all with a focus on different themes around entrepreneurship and small businesses in

emerging countries – and, over the years, a close network of colleagues and friends in those

countries, with a common research interest, emerged. They conducted empirical research in

countries where entrepreneurs often operated under turbulent and sometimes, as in Belarus,

outright hostile conditions.

But which theories could be used to explain entrepreneurial behaviour in such conditions (Welter &

Smallbone, 2003; Welter & Smallbone, 2011)? Why were there so many portfolio and serial

entrepreneurs (Smallbone & Welter, 2001a)? Was it possible for informal petty traders to develop

more substantial businesses over time (Welter & Smallbone, 2009)? Could entrepreneurs change the

contexts in which they operated (Smallbone, Welter & Jianzhong, 2011; Welter, 2011)? Which role

did governments play in fostering entrepreneurship in these countries (Smallbone & Welter, 2001b)?

Once we had embarked on this field, ideas seemed to generate themselves, often emerging from

previous projects where we saw a gap in our knowledge. Also, our interest in theoretical approaches
increased, in particular as we perceived a need to search for theories which could explain

entrepreneurial behaviour in non-Western contexts; and this led us to ultimately write a whole book

about our results and experiences (Smallbone & Welter, 2009).

Discussing your preliminary ideas with colleagues and sharing them at workshops and in

brainstorming sessions is also a worthwhile pursuit: not only can these activities help unearth work

that may have already been undertaken on the topic, they will also help clarify thinking. Nor should

one confine your ideas discussion to entrepreneurship researchers exclusively: ‘outsiders’ can raise

difficult questions and issues that may be germane to your initial idea but because they are outside

the conventional field of entrepreneurship, have not yet been picked up by entrepreneurship

researchers. Moreover, outsiders can ask the awkward ‘so what’ question which helps you think of

the contribution that the research can make: its target audiences and publication routes.

All too often, researchers are singing to their own choir rather than affecting those outside their

immediate domain. This is a particularly important point for entrepreneurship researchers: we need

to be able to engage with disciplines and fields outside the area, and then go back and impress upon

them the significance and growing maturity of the field. Thus, airing your ideas early on will

effectively test their feasibility, helping to jettison any erroneous ideas and thus increase its chances

of success, reaching interested audiences and make a contribution to theory and practice.

Ideas can be pioneering or replicating / verifying / contradicting what we already know. Others may

be ‘hole filling’. Most of the time, your initial ideas might seem little more than a specific problem

but once the issue is problematised, a series of tangential issues will emerge. This next stage

involves shaping your ideas further and honing the specific research question(s) that you seek to

investigate. This process is often iterative and chaotic as you delve into different literatures to help

you develop your own foci. However, exploring, sharing and problematizing your ideas are all part
of the process of developing an agenda that is worthwhile and adds to the knowledge. It is not

unusual for entrepreneurship researchers to work outside their ‘knowledge’ comfort zone as it is a

field that draws upon and feeds into many mainstream disciplines. This only underlines further the

need to ensure that the process you go through from idea to publication is as systematic as possible

without being overly restrictive.

From research idea to objectives, concepts and research questions

Defining research objectives

Having explored the broad topic of interest and considered its various antecedents in the literature,

the next stage is to develop a focus. No matter how interesting or gripping a research idea or topic

is, in order for it to contribute to theory, knowledge and practice the boundaries of the research

project have to be delineated. This involves stating the objectives of the research, recognising the

underlying concepts that you will be drawing upon, as well as defining your research questions.

From our own experience, we suggest a procedure to help your set out the objectives for your

research as this also will influence the possibilities for publications later on.

We suggest that you actually write down the objectives of the research – these objectives will be

work in progress and act as a catalyst for reaching a more definitive set of objectives.

• First, writing your objectives down actually stimulates thinking amongst the researchers involved

and raise any initial points for clarification. Achieving ‘buy-in’ from your colleagues and other

stakeholders is crucial at this early stage – writing down drafts of objectives and receiving

feedback helps to refine the research as well as ensure that those involved feel some ownership

over it.

• Second, written objectives should flush out any erroneous ideas and concepts that are of little or

no importance to the research project. This is important, as too often research in the field is
 undertaken by merely applying theories developed from elsewhere without sufficient

consideration to its usefulness in understanding entrepreneurship.

• Third, setting out the research objectives should help you prioritise what is important and

influence the timetable of the research. In other words, this should stimulate your thinking

about project design.

• Fourth, objective setting will bring home to all involved the resource requirements (and hence

constraints) to achieve the objectives. Although this has been tangential to our discussion so far,

ultimately all research has a cost: both an opportunity cost, in the sense of us pursuing one

project rather than an alternative, and the actual fieldwork cost in terms of salaries, fieldwork

expenses and data collection/ purchase etc.

• Fifth, the process may help you identify which aspects of the project are more likely to be

publishable and which are of more relevance to a client. A research report, conference or journal

paper, or book are different forms of dissemination and will require different levels of

commitment. Here, also, it is important to discuss any ethical issues as well as the intellectual

property ownership of the project outcomes with the external sponsor, if appropriate.

• Finally, this process will help in the allocation of roles between the members of the research

team, or if you are undertaking a much smaller project help you work out the practical

implications for your own activities. As part of this discussion, you should be able to consider the

competencies and motivations of those involved. It is especially important to map out these

roles and identify any gaps in knowledge or the scientific capabilities of the team.

What are the key concepts?

Identifying the main concepts that the research will involve also is crucial at this stage. These may be

regarded as the basic elements used in theory. In some instances, a concept will be straightforward

such as ‘business performance’ whilst in others it may be less easily defined and subject to debate in

the literature such as ‘entrepreneurs’ or ‘cognition’. However, entrepreneurship researchers should

not shy away from attempting to identify and define the concepts of relevance to their research.

Simply borrowing from other disciplines and applying it to the study of entrepreneurship can be

flawed. An appreciation of the actual context of the phenomenon under study is crucial and as such

it is important that mainstream theories are questioned and critiqued rather than simply applied, if

the field of entrepreneurship is to develop (Zahra, 2017).

Failure to address these issues early on in the research project may only lead to problems emerging

later on in the research process. The significance of identifying and sharing the underlying concepts

to be used in the project are important when working in a team. When working in international

teams, you may face also additional challenges in this stage. Box 3 provides two examples from our

own research, in both cases projects which studied a difficult concept, namely trust. Communicating

across the research team is crucial and this involves additional exchanges compared with working

with a colleague within your institution or alone. The examples also show the multiple

interpretations of trust and it application in the entrepreneurship literatures (See Welter, 2012).

Box 3: Studying trust across cultures and in intercultural teams

In a cross-cultural study of trust and its role for entrepreneurship in Estonia, Germany, Italy, Russia

and the UK, the teams applied the same guidelines, which were jointly developed in English and then

translated into the respective languages. This posed additional challenges in researching trust across

cultures: differences in research cultures in the various countries might have an impact on how

questions are phrased and how the concept of trust is interpreted. Team members might interpret

questions differently because of their individual experiences and background. Training sessions were

conducted in all projects to ensure that interviewers involved similar understanding of the research

topic and the guidelines. (Welter & Alex, 2011).

In another example, a piece of research by Robert and colleagues involved examining the

relationships between accountants and entrepreneurs, and specifically the role of ‘trust’ gained
from the provision of compliance services to businesses as a vehicle for extending the range of

services (Blackburn et al 2011). For entrepreneurs, questions were developed on the nature of the

trust they have with their accountants. From the accountants’ perspective, questions were raised

regarding the viability of developing non-compliance services for small firms. In attempting to

answer what are ostensibly simple questions, it was important to undertake some conceptual

ground clearing, particularly around the notion of trust. This was important not only to help steer

the research questions but also to ensure that all members of the research team understood the

underpinning parameters of the research especially given fieldwork was being undertaken in both

the UK and Australia. Hence, a questionnaire was developed which included the specific dimensions

of trust to ensure that interviewers covered each element of the concept in their interviews. These

underpinning dimensions were discussed in detail so that the team understood the precise routes to

follow in the face-to-face interviews whilst at the same time allowing the interviews to flow.

Developing the research question

Having identified your research objectives and related concepts, the research question or series of

questions will need to be developed. This will help set out the boundaries of the research topic

through the specificity of the question or questions. This stage will inevitably involve making

decisions about the research project: what to include and exclude. In some instances, this process

will involve discussions with the sponsor, or key stakeholders, to ensure that there is a shared

understanding of the focus of the research. This underlines the case for a clear, unequivocal written

statement of the objectives of the project. The actual process of undertaking this exercise is as

important as the actual outcome of the objectives.

The research question(s) you develop may take various forms. These may constitute detailed

research propositions, hypotheses or broader questions and statements, depending on your

philosophical stance. Although we are not being prescriptive regarding the methods you adopt, we
would advise all researchers to have a research question or series of research questions in mind

prior to thinking about fieldwork. Whilst this position may lead to us being accused of being overly

positivist and trespassing on the methodological freedom so desired by some qualitative

researchers, this is not our intention. We would, however, defend the need to have some questions

irrespective of your epistemological position and intended research method. These questions or

propositions will help with your on-going literature trawl, refine your objectives and ultimately

influence your actual fieldwork questions and methods. This process of problematizing your research

idea, its objectives and subsequent questions is quite demanding but very stimulating and ultimately

rewarding. It is more often than not an iterative process. In entrepreneurship research especially,

this process can be very creative and involves using your imagination in order to mark your research

off from the too often run of the mill research projects found in the field.

Box 4: She is blond and good-looking, and she is an entrepreneur

For example, Friederike has been studying the image of entrepreneurship and women entrepreneurs

in Germany (Achtenhagen & Welter, 2003; 2007; 2011). Our interest arose from discussions we had

asking ourselves how media depicted entrepreneurs. Both of us brought complementary interests to

the project – one specialising in media and entrepreneurship, the other focusing on

entrepreneurship and women. We designed the methodology and did the first ever comprehensive

study of German daily newspapers, over a period of 10 years. What started as a self-funded research

project, grew into a successful proposal to a German ministry, was of high interest to journalists and

practitioners, we were able to publish several articles, and currently, we have submitted another

proposal which, once accepted, will allow us to update our analysis and to study temporal changes.

Project management and team building

Although this chapter and this book focus on publishing, we think a few words on project

management and team building are appropriate, given that much of the research on
entrepreneurship involves teams and is increasingly international (eg. Chetty et al., 2013). Both of us

have written numerous project proposals over the years and have acquired experiences in managing

large-scale intercultural teams, which also helped us substantially with ideas generation and the

dissemination of the results internationally. However, both of us also know the pitfalls and

challenges coming with project management and the task to build and guide an effective team.

Academics often fall into the role of project management, rather than willingly or deliberately

embrace it. It is also our experience that researchers tend to both underrate the demands of this

role and underestimate its significance in project completion. Of course, much depends on the scale

of the project and the number of partners. However, you should not forget that before you can

publish from research projects, they need to be implemented and managed and this is about all

those little things you never ever think about beforehand! Some of what project management could

involve includes:

– Organisation, e.g., project meetings, study visits, visa if you collaborate with international

colleagues

– Liaising with funding bodies, including regular reporting

– Training and coaching new team members in just about everything, from financial rules to

statistical package training (eg. STATA; SPSS), qualitative coding and interview techniques

– Building a team: finding partners & ‘maintaining’ the team, involves foreseeing any potential

problems, thinking through contingencies and if the worst comes to the worst, settling disputes

within the team

The latter is a key task of scientific project management. As a project leader, it is important that you

know yourself and be yourself with others in the team. This includes knowing your own strengths

and weaknesses both technically and in terms of managerial skills. You will need to be an effective

communicator, be able to understand the bigger picture of the project and demonstrate leadership.
Being au fait with the resource requirements of the project is critical: this will require an

understanding of the time requirements needed from those in the team and may involve a grasp of

financial procedures where a budget is linked to a project. Other issues include considerations of

intellectual property matters and a dissemination strategy. A self-competency mapping exercise

may prove useful here. This does not have to be unnecessarily formalized but even the most basic

assessment will help you in constructing your research team.

Box 5: The importance of soft skills

Friederike’s research teams in the projects she led consisted of 7 up to 15 researchers, from at least

4 different countries, all with their own personalities, with different backgrounds and experiences.

Our collaboration has a number of success factors: we have, by now, a track record of successfully

working together for more than a decade; we went through a trial-and-error process of team

building and also threw partners out of the team at one point; all of us learnt who to trust and how

to communicate across cultures, how to work together, and – very important – we never forgot to

have fun together.

Similarly, Robert tends to work on projects that involve teams of researchers – these may be based

within a single research centre, or across a range of institutions and countries. His experience

suggests that, although a project may be very well specified on paper, the implementation of the

project is what matters if outcomes are to be successful: having a well-crafted proposal is not worth

the paper it is written on if it is not effectively operationalized. For example, where possible even on

cross-border projects, Robert insists on holding a ‘kick-off’ meeting where clarity is reached in terms

of the research objectives, the roles of those involved and thrash out any misunderstandings. Whilst

other forms of communications are important - telephone calls, emailing and document exchange -

and can be performed easily and frequently, there is no substitute for meeting the research team in

person; eyeballing members and deciding who will do what and sharing any concerns. This, in itself,

helps build trust amongst team members, especially if they have not worked together before and
enhance the chances of a successful research outcome. In some cases the problem may be a random

event such as: a member of staff leaving the team; the promise of being able to access a particular

group of entrepreneurs collapsing; or fieldwork problems because of a border closing. Having

everybody on board means that when such challenges occur the team leader can readily explain

what is happening and negotiate with specific members of the team to help think through

constructive and imaginative practical solutions without compromising the timetable and outcomes

of the research.

In other words, it is people who do research and leading and pulling together a team, making sure

that they all have an understanding of the goals and know the responsibilities of each member of

the team, is critical to success. We have learned many lessons the hard way both in terms of

managing a project team as well as dealing with sponsors and other stakeholders. Undertaking

research involves risks and often pioneering research tends to be riskier because of the use of

untried methods or working in unchartered territory. Although you may strive to have contingency

plans for all eventualities, there is no way that you can prevent unforeseen circumstances or

mistakes. When these occur, it is better to be prepared to acknowledge them and find workable

solutions amongst the team and sponsors. Also, set clear and simple rules for collaboration;

‘maintain’ your research team which involves identifying who is responsible for every single (and in

your eyes often simple) problem; the one who settles disputes within and amongst national teams.

When liaising with the funding bodies for example, it is best to not argue about a problem but rather

to suggest flexible and sometimes unorthodox answers the funders could agree to.

In short, given that entrepreneurship research is increasingly global and involves team work, an

appreciation of the dynamics of team work is important if the field is to develop. We cannot provide

all the answers and nor offer a blueprint for how to construct a team. Nor can we suggest

appropriate team structures. However, we have shown examples of the issues that can emerge and
emphasise that both communication and having shared goals is critical in team approaches to

research.

Data collection, fieldwork and analytical approaches

Entrepreneurship research is highly innovative and pluralist in its methodological approaches

spanning mixed methods, qualitative (eg Perren and Ram, 2004; Neergaard, & Ulhoi, 2007) and

quantitative methods (e.g., Davidsson, 2008) as well as international case studies (eg. Chetty et al.,

2013). It is the fieldwork stage that makes entrepreneurship research particularly distinctive from

many other disciplines. However, whatever approach you adopt, it is critical that it is undertaken

rigorously, is transparent and stands up to scrutiny by peers. The most important point in your field

work plan is that it is appropriate to the research objectives that you have set out to investigate.

However, as editors of journals, all too often we find papers submitted that are technically sound

but unimaginative or merely have drawn upon a database or analytical technique that is

inappropriate.

With the absence of already existing data, the empirical investigation of entrepreneurship at the

micro level often involves engaging with entrepreneurs. These are sometimes reluctant individuals

and you as a researcher have to persuade them that your interest is actually of interest to them! This

is more of an art form than a science as such. Although step-by-step approaches are useful, you will

have to be flexible and adopt a ‘can do’ attitude without compromising the fundamental objectives

of the research or introducing biases into the fieldwork responses. Overcoming the often low-

response rates in entrepreneurship research (Curran and Blackburn, 2001), and hence its validity, is

an on-going battle but one that we must continue if the credibility of the research is to be enhanced.

Box 6: Where to find the entrepreneurs?

For example, in the earlier discussed example from Box 1, finding sufficient numbers of

entrepreneurs who had ‘exited’ from their enterprise within the previous two years to allow

analysis, proved challenging. Initially, the bank was able to provide contact details but because of

data protection laws, this involved a long process. Many entrepreneurs had also simply moved on

and their contact details were, therefore, outdated. This led the researchers to re-think their

recruitment strategies and expand the sources of potential participants. This included contacting all

researchers who were already undertaking fieldwork for other projects and asking them to pass on

details of any of their interviewees who had ‘exited’ as well as drawing upon a Dun and Bradstreet

database. Overall, 388 completed questionnaires were analysed together with the results from 20

face-to-face interviews. The advantages of drawing upon a range of sources also brought benefits in

terms of reducing the bias effects of a single source for a sampling frame.

Fieldwork is even more difficult in international and cross-cultural studies. For example, in emerging

market economies, it is difficult to use secondary data because it simply does not exist, which poses

the need to generate external funding for fieldwork and data collection. Convenience, snowball and

random sampling can be used and have dominated our early projects. However, this generated

some difficulties when we started to publish from these projects, because reviewers were not happy

with our “haphazard sampling methods”, as one reviewer once put it. We also discovered that not

every survey technique worked everywhere! Finally, depending on the topic of the study, you may

face additional difficulties with respondents who may be puzzled or question why you are interested

in such an issue. This may be on the grounds of why is this important? Or more suspiciously: is this

person from the ministry or an undercover reporter? Be prepared to be questioned when you are

collecting data in the field as entrepreneurs by their very nature are curious individuals who quite

rightly can ask you some difficult questions.

Box 7: Researching cross-border informal activities

For example, in a project where we researched the role of trust in cross-border entrepreneurship in

Belarus, Moldova and the Ukraine, the sensitive nature of the trust topic posed a particular

challenge, especially as the specific activities that were the focus of the interviews often happened

outside the law. Researchers had to work hard to establish relationships with potential interviewees.

In practice, a variety of approaches were used: the researchers came from the respective country

themselves, which allowed them to draw on a common cultural understanding and which created an

initial level of trust with their interviewees. In the case of cross-border traders, researchers in

Belarus, for example, observed respondents on the Polish side of the border in local markets, railway

stations and in cross-border trains. As soon as they had identified potential cross-border traders,

they would offer to help with the transport of goods (Welter et al., 2006). This was considered

helpful by potential interviewees as border regulations stipulate upper limits for goods imported by

individuals. Many traders circumvent these regulations by drawing on an elaborate system of

transport workers. Interviewers were thus winning the goodwill of their respondents and facilitating

the way for a successful interview.

Having collected data, this then has to be analysed and used as evidence in your argument. This

evidence needs to be set against your research objectives and specific questions or hypotheses.

Box 8: Reading and interpreting fieldwork data

Business growth, the processes underpinning growth and how to encourage growth continue to

present a foci of study for researchers in the field (Wright & Stigliani, 2013). In a comparison of

growth in SMEs in the USA and UK, a number of practical challenges where encountered but also

some conceptual assumptions were also brought into question (Blackburn et al., 2008). Finding a

definition of high growth was relatively easy compared with applying this to fieldwork in the US and

UK. Using change in turnover as the measure of business growth, firms achieving real turnover
growth of 60% over the previous three years were initially selected for interview. However, the

fieldwork research was problematic in that it started at the time of the beginning of a major

recession – a recession that started in the USA before the UK. In addition, although businesses may

have met the ‘fast growth’ criteria from one source (the interviewee or company records), cross

checking this in interviews was sometimes problematic. However, the project demonstrated that

even in adverse fieldwork conditions, through teamwork and effective communication, creative

solutions can emerge and high quality, influential outputs can be produced. The fieldwork also

demonstrated the importance of which year, or even which point in the year, you choose as the

starting point: one year either way can include or exclude the business from the study. Although any

definition of fast growth can be criticized, one of the key points to emerge from this research was

indeed the fragility of growth and that it is episodic, rather than that it occurs somehow in a linear

fashion (eg Brush et al, 2009).

We will not dwell on the actual variety of techniques of analysis available to researchers in

entrepreneurship in this Chapter (see Chapter XXX refer to Fayolle and Wright) but focus on the

approaches to publication that you have at your disposal.

Dissemination, publication strategy and audience engagement

Although we put dissemination at the end of our chapter, this is the most important activity for

academics. Having a ground-breaking piece of research is not worth the effort if you are unable to

disseminate you results and let the world know what you have found!

One of the lessons we take from our own projects is the difficulty to publish once the project is

finished. Where external project funders are involved, you may need to clarify any intellectual

property issues. In the case of contract research, you often need to obtain permission from the

funding agency and we would recommend that you seek this early on in the project scoping phase.
In the case of international projects, only some of the team members might be interested in

following the project up and continuing to work together on publications which normally take their

time to develop.

Ideally when you start setting up the project you should write out a dissemination plan, including a

timetable that goes beyond the project life. This should cover: the outlets where to publish and/or

present, which audiences are interested, who takes the lead on which publication, and – ideally – a

time frame. For example, in Friederike’s projects we had agreed on that national teams were

responsible for publishing in national outlets and they were the lead authors for those articles, while

the project leader was the main responsible for international publications. Before you start to write

up your results you should identify your audience (indeed this may have been considered at the

ideas formulation stage but other interesting findings may have emerged) and consider why your

findings are of interest to them. Put another way, the world is awash with readings on

entrepreneurship and you need to realise that you are competing for airtime!

So how do you progress from a project report (we use this example because we are both familiar

with the difficulties of publishing from project reports) to a journal publication? Projects report are

generally policy- or practitioner-oriented, and often less theory-driven than is warranted in journal

publications. In that regard, you have to start from scratch and rewrite for an academic audience. It

is particularly important to identify the academic contribution in a journal article while a project

report has to end with practical and/or policy implications. Such policy recommendations are not

always the best implications to merely transfer to your journal articles and nor do they necessarily

reflect the academic contribution your research could make. Conversely, there has been a recent

tendency for academics to focus dissemination on scholarly publications as a means to securing

career progression. Depending on your project, it might be equally important that you know how to

write for a practioner-oriented audience or how to “sell” your results to policy-makers. After all,
achieving impact is important and may help you secure recognition amongst the wider world of

academia. This is especially the case with an applied field such as entrepreneurship.

Conclusions

In this chapter, we have discussed the journey from idea generation to publication or at least the

first steps on the sometimes long way towards publication! For some of you, this may seem a

daunting journey, especially having read the many risks, challenges and pitfalls that we have

outlined. No entrepreneurship research journey is typical and each reader will no doubt be able to

reflect on their own experiences. However, we also hope that we have been able to show you the

benefits of doing research, of continuously generating new ideas and writing new project proposals,

contributing to theory as well as influencing practitioners and policy-makers. This is fun! And we

hope that you will enjoy the research journey as much as both of us do.

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