Australasian Entrepreneurship

The six articles in Australasian Entrepreneurship contribute to the field through multi level theory and mixed methodology development, case studies, historical, social and gender perspectives, business failure and personality type. This unique Australasian perspective is ideal for Entrepreneurship course materials, anthologies and tutorial exercises seeking relevant regional content which is analysed in the context of the current international literature. If entrepreneurship theory, research, and practice represent Oz at the culmination of the yellow-brick road, Dorothy and her companions have much company on their journey. For example, one source estimates that 460 million people worldwide either start a new business or become the owners of new businesses annually (Reynolds et al 2002). Moreover, entrepreneurship is the fastest growing field of study in tertiary education in North America and Europe (Bygrave 2004) and fifteen specialized scholarly journals disseminate research on the topic globally. Within the policy-making arena, the governments of both Australia and New Zealand seek to promote entrepreneurship as an engine of economic growth. This special issue on entrepreneurship thus appears to be timely and can help to take stock of this topic within our Australasian context. It can also serve as a baseline from which to consider directions for future research in this important area of inquiry. Historically, research on entrepreneurship has been informed by multiple disciplines. The influence of economics is seen through the ideas of Schumpeter (1976) and Kirzner (1997) especially. For example, Schumpeter's notion of creative destruction described how existing product markets are destroyed by entrepreneurs who create new markets from information asymmetries or other market disequilibria. Contributions from psychology have focused on explaining entrepreneurship as a function of core human characteristics including tolerance for ambiguity (Schere 1982) and need for achievement (McCelland 1961). The discipline of sociology identified properties of the broader external environment that appear to influence the likelihood of entrepreneurial activity occurring. These include competence-destroying technological change (Tushman & Anderson 1986) industry dynamics (Hannan & Freeman 1987), and market structures (Acs & Audretsch 1990).