Entrepreneurship research in Germany.

This article explores entrepreneurship research in Germany, paying particular attention to its origins and current "re-emergence." Since the late 1990s, the field has gained ground, as is reflected in an increasing number of entrepreneurship chairs at universities, and the establishment of an annual national entrepreneurship conference. A particular strength of the German approach to researching entrepreneurship, which can be traced back directly to the historical roots, is found to be its consideration of context specificity and embeddedness, going hand-in-hand with a strong multidisciplinary tendency. These are two features where entrepreneurship research in Germany could add a distinctive flavor to the current mainstream debate. In practice, the diffusion of this perspective is inhibited by an insufficient exchange with the international scientific community.

Introduction

More and more researchers in Germany today study entrepreneurship phenomena. Since the late 1990s, one can observe an increase in publications and in the institutionalization of entrepreneurship research at universities, while an annual conference, the G-Forum, was created in combination with a yearbook of entrepreneurship research, both assisting in fostering the development of a scientific community. During most of the early and mid-twentieth century, entrepreneurship research in Germany was practically nonexistent, while research on small and medium-sized enterprises flourished. Despite its outstanding historical tradition, such as the works of Max Weber and others, current entrepreneurship research is probably best described as a field in its adolescence.

This paper sets out to investigate the development of German entrepreneurship research over time, in order to take stock in the light of the overall development of the field. Several articles have reviewed the development of entrepreneurship research during the last decades, stating a lack of conceptual and paradigmatic development (Ireland, Reutzel, & Webb, 2005; Shane & Venkataraman, 2000) and legitimacy (Busenitz et al., 2003), while reviews of the state of the art across Europe drew attention to the strengths of the European approaches, such as taking into account contextual differences (Huse & Landstrom, 1997). In this context, the paper reviews the field in Germany and progress made with creating legitimacy. It discusses the historical origins of the field, the path of rebirth and consolidation before turning to review themes. The paper then turns to assess whether and to what extent the German approach is distinctive and different, and finally asking about the future of the German approach.

The Origins of German Entrepreneurship Research

Historically, the origins of entrepreneurship research can be traced back to German and German-speaking scholars prominent in nineteenth and early twentieth century, who have had a great influence on economics and sociological disciplines in general. This refers to German scholars such as Karl Marx (1818-1883), Gustav Schmoller (1838-1917), Werner Sombart (1863-1941), and Max Weber (1864-1920), as well as to Austrian economists such as Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883-1950) and Friedrich von Hayek (1899-1992). Most likely, none of these scholars would have understood himself as an entrepreneurship researcher, but a closer look at their works reveals ideas and themes which are an implicit and explicit part of today's entrepreneurship research in Germany and elsewhere. While much of this "early entrepreneurship" research was concentrated on the entrepreneurial person (Berghoff, 2004; Pribram, 1998; Winkel, 1977), its most important contribution may be in the accentuation of context. As German entrepreneurship research still reflects this idea today, we will briefly introduce the reader to some examples.

Max Weber is not only known as the founding father of modern sociology. Moreover, he analyzed the role religion played for the development of modern economies. In his most famous book on Protestant ethics and the "spirit of capitalism" (1905), he identified three major traits of Protestant ethics that influenced entrepreneurship development, namely the zeal for work, a propensity for saving, and sincerity (Weber, 1920/1984). While it is difficult to explicitly trace Weber's ideas in German sociological entrepreneurship research, his impact on entrepreneurship research in general is more obvious. Weber's ideas fuelled a never-ending debate in the entrepreneurship discipline on whether entrepreneurs are born or made: Do entrepreneurs show some innate traits as discussed by "traits" proponents, with McClelland' s works on the need-for-achievement as a prominent example (McClelland, 1961)? Or are entrepreneurs made in the sense of the cultural context influencing the emergence of entrepreneurship?

Context also played a large role in the works of Gustav Schmoller, who, albeit never gaining international recognition, laid the foundations for the concept of a social market economy, picked up in the twentieth century by Walter Eucken and Ludwig Erhard. The current discussion on the (institutional) embeddedness of entrepreneurship (e.g., Davidsson, 2003; Steyaert & Katz, 2004) can be traced back to Schmoller, who understood human actions as being embedded in and influenced by economic, political, and social institutions, thus anticipating the main ideas of institutional theory, in particular the concept of formal and informal institutions of Douglass North (Plumpe, 1999, p. 263; Pribram, 1998, p. 414), and drawing attention to the context specificity of entrepreneurship.

With the exception of Schmoller, whose main works were never translated into English, (1) many ideas from German (or German-speaking/Austrian) scholars were adapted by foreign entrepreneurship scholars. Translation of well-known works, as well as the mass emigration (2) of German scientists and academicians from 1933 onwards paved the way for an international reception of German economic research; moreover, many emigrants soon published major works only in English. This brain drain fundamentally changed the German scientific landscape and cultural life: German science lost its intellectual and cultural roots, which had fostered the specific holistic perspective in the German economics and sociological disciplines (Priddat, 1998, p. 415), and the German language lost its recognition as not only being the language of the "poets and thinkers," but also that of an internationally recognized scientific community.

Rebirth and Consolidation of the Field

Despite this outstanding historical tradition, current entrepreneurship research is probably best described as a field in adolescence--a field on a path towards a renewed consolidation. To illustrate this point, this section discusses the rebirth of the field from the 1950s onwards, and the progress made with its institutionalization by looking at actors and disciplines involved.

Re-birth of the Field

During most of the early and mid-twentieth century, entrepreneurship research in Germany was nonexistent, while research on small and medium-sized enterprises flourished. This is reflected in a number of institutes and researchers analyzing SME (small and medium-sized enterprises) phenomena, as well as in specific conferences and publication outlets. As far back as 1948, albeit not a German conference, but one with a large participation from Germany and held in German language, the Rencontres de St-Gall were initiated to discuss SMEs and factors inhibiting and promoting their development, implicitly picking up a discussion arising in the nineteenth century about whether SMEs would persist in an age of industrialization. The first meeting included well-known management and economics professors from Swiss, Austrian, and German universities, like Alfred Gutersohn from the University St. Gallen in Switzerland, Willy Bouffier and Walter Heinrich from Vienna, and Karl Rossle from Munich (Schmidt, 2004). One of the specifics of this conference, which also still is reflected in the policy-orientation of SME research in Germany (and other German-speaking countries) is its mixture of participants, who were drawn from both academia and politics, including SME associations, local administrations, and others. Another distinctive characteristic concerns the interdisciplinary nature of the conference, where researchers interested in SME topics met and still meet biannually, regardless of whether they are from management science, economics, or other disciplines. Today, this conference is the oldest SME conference, although no longer focused exclusively on small business topics.