Edward Elgar Publishing An Evolutionary Approach to Entrepreneurship: Selected Essays by Howard E. Aldrich

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. Review '. . . the collection represents an archive of pioneering pieces that have shaped today's rhetoric in the entrepreneurship space. . . To have a collection that maps the evolution of evolutionary theory, as well as present the genesis of entrepreneurial ventures as social entities, is both useful and practical for any reader.'--J.B. Craig, Academy of Management Learning and Education 'Howard Aldrich. . . has been a significant factor in the growing interest in the application of evolutionary approaches to the study of entrepreneurship. . . A collection of his papers, accessible at one place, will naturally be of great interest to researchers and scholars of entrepreneurship. . . the book presents a valuable collection that should provide scholars with a sound base for further research in the application of evolutionary theories to the study of entrepreneurship.'--Vijaya Sherry Chand, The Journal of Entrepreneurship About the Author Howard E. Aldrich, Kenan Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, US