Edward Elgar Publishing The Truth about Entrepreneurship: Policy Making and Business Creation (Elgar Impact of Entrepreneurship Research series)

Policy makers give a lot of attention to business creation and entrepreneurship, but they do not have a good resource for understanding The Truth about Entrepreneurship. The extensive media coverage of Wall Street entrepreneurship provides an incomplete portrayal of most business creation. While both high profile and everyday new firms provide major contributions to economic growth, the ongoing, bottoms-up activity pursued by over half a billion around the world is not widely recognized. This book reviews some of the most salient features of grass roots business creation, such as the total amount of activity, differences related to national economic development, the relationship to business churning and job creation, the impact of national context, the mixed contributions of high growth firms, the modest effect of external financial support, the unequal distribution of sunk costs related to successful payback, importance as an option for the most desperate in poor countries, and the tendency to overlook the continuing incremental impact of Main Street business creation. Entrepreneurial scholars, faculty, policy analysts and graduate students interested in economic development, entrepreneurship and public policy will find clarity and gain a depth of knowledge about policymaking and business creation with The Truth about Entrepreneurship. Review 'A comprehensive account of business creation and its role in society by the architect behind the largest research programs on entrepreneurship in the world. Reynolds covers a multitude of important aspects of entrepreneurship - from grassroots to grandiose - underpinned by solid data.' --Per Davidsson, QUT Business School, Australia and Jönköping University, Sweden'Truth is always illuminating, and never more so than understanding what is true concerning entrepreneurship, where myths too often prevail over the truth concerning this essential source of prosperity. Paul's book is now the definitive source of this truth and is indispensable for anyone who wants to help the world become more prosperous.' --Derek Lidow, Princeton University, US'Entrepreneurship (business creation) is a wide-spread human activity that currently involves 600 million people starting about 400 million new ventures, word-wide. Paul Reynold's new book The Truth About Entrepreneurship provides essential facts and insights about how and why entrepreneurship occurs across the globe and offers policy makers and others critical knowledge about this important economic and social activity. This book, and his earlier text, Business Creation, are critical resources for anyone who wants a comprehensive understanding of the process and characteristics of entrepreneurship and its value for economic and social growth and change.' --William B. Gartner, Babson College, US About the Author Paul D. Reynolds, Honorary Professor of Entrepreneurship, Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK and Founding Coordinating Principal Investigator, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Program