Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods in Entrepreneurship

Edited by Helle Neergaard, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management and John Parm Ulhøi, Professor in Organization and Management Theory, the Aarhus School of Business, University of Aarhus, Denmark

This expansive and practical Handbook introduces the methods currently used to increase the understanding of the usefulness and versatility of a systematic approach to qualitative research in entrepreneurship. It fills a crucial gap in the literature on entrepreneurship theory, and, just as importantly, illustrates how these principles and techniques can be appropriately and fruitfully employed.

‘. . . the Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods in Entrepreneurship is an important contribution to the field, and should be referenced in any paper using qualitative methodologies to investigate the entrepreneurial phenomenon.’
– Craig S. Galbraith, Journal of Enterprising Communities

‘There is no hiding behind the ramparts of dry scholarship here. The credibility of the theory being spoken of is not the stuff of constructed proofs, but alignments of critical insight and utility. This is where qualitative work can make a difference to the field, and where this book makes its mark.’
– Robin Holt, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research

‘The Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods in Entrepreneurship is an unusually solid and multifaceted book on what qualitative methods have done, are doing and will do in entrepreneurship research. Every serious entrepreneurship scholar should read it. It points at the future!’
– Björn Bjerke, University of Kalmar, Sweden

‘I would warmly recommend this unique collection of qualitative methods of entrepreneurship research to both mature and beginning researchers as a menu to choose from for their planned empirical studies. For those who try to get away from only quantitative studies in both business practice and academic research, this book is their chance to find a rich inspiration in reflecting on entrepreneurship as a lived experience using grounded theory and ethnographic, discourse and narrative approaches. It might convince editors of top journals of entrepreneurship research to welcome qualitative research submissions as an indispensable complement to “quantitative only” submissions. This domain is not physics. In bringing together such a variety of experts from so many nationalities in this Handbook, our Danish colleagues are making entrepreneurship research a realistic global venture.’
– Jan Ulijn, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands

‘Helle Neergaard and John Parm Ulhøi have compiled a remarkable collection of work that both represents the range of methods and demonstrates the depth of insight that can be achieved through qualitative approaches. This book is not simply a handbook of qualitative research methods, though it well achieves this aim, it is also an important contribution towards the field of entrepreneurship research.’
– From the Foreword by Sara Carter