Summary

Do entrepreneurs create ventures or do venture experiences create entrepreneurs? The authors of Entrepreneurship as Experience propose that the answer is 'both'. This important volume examines how individuals experience the creation of a venture as it happens and how that experience determines the types of entrepreneur and venture that ultimately emerge.

In essence, entrepreneurship is an experience consisting of large numbers of key events such as a first sale, hiring a first employee, losing a big account - events that are processed and made sense of by the entrepreneur. They produce cognitive, emotional and physiological responses, which impact decision-making and behavior. The result is an experience that is purposive, diverse, uncertain, ambiguous and transformative - and unique to each individual. Here, the authors argue that as experience unfolds both entrepreneur and venture are being constructed and emerge in unique forms. This experiential view introduces an entirely new lens through which entrepreneurship can be examined. Entrepreneurship as Experience comprises chapters dedicated to sociological, anthropological and psychological research related to human experiencing; the volume presents a new frame for understanding the role of emotions and feelings in venture creation and lays out a conceptual framework for understanding how real-time experiencing informs the entrepreneurial process. New insights are provided regarding how the entrepreneurial mindset and an entrepreneurial identity are formed, and why entrepreneurs take on certain traits and develop certain competencies. Further, the authors put forth new approaches to conducting research on the entrepreneurial experience.

Students - advanced as well as undergraduate - and scholars of entrepreneurship, innovation, strategy and management will find themselves turning often to the ideas and research presented here.

Choice Review

This scholarly, theoretical, and thought-provoking volume examines the intertwined nature of business ventures and the entrepreneurs who undertake them, underscoring how both change based on the experiences encountered during the development of a venture. Ventures may shift into something unplanned or unintended, depending on the events that take place and the individual involved. The authors, US academicians, draw on anthropology, psychology, and sociology to explain that the entrepreneurial experience is unique, individualistic, and affected by many different disciplines and theories. They emphasize that feelings and emotions are important factors in pursuing a venture and influence opportunity recognition, persistence in pursuing an idea, risk taking, ability to deal with stress, and creative problem solving, among other things. They also stress that, although it is impossible to predict who will be successful, successful entrepreneurs tend to be more achievement oriented and tolerant of ambiguity than society at large. This work can be used as the basis for research on the entrepreneurial experience to better understand how to identify, pursue, and take advantage of a venture opportunity to achieve success. There are no cases or business examples, but each chapter contains extensive academic references and a bibliography. Summing Up: Recommended. Research and faculty collections. D. W. Huffmire emeritus, University of Connecticut