Entrepreneurship in teleology: the variety of the forms

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of the paper is to define a range of entrepreneurial concepts and provide a critical review of their content in order to map the forms of the entrepreneurial actions within their teleological context. Design/methodology/approach Based on the authors' definition of teleology as the process of heading towards an end, entrepreneurship was categorized into a three‐item typology, namely subject, process and object. The latter served as a platform for the analysis, which reveals some key qualities about research in entrepreneurship. Findings The paper provides a categorization of entrepreneurship both at the distinction (subject, process, object) and the contextual level and the commonalities and differences among entrepreneurship's different teleological approaches are analyzed and the potential is offered for further avenues of research to emerge. Additionally, it is demonstrated that the teleological approaches represent distinct approaches to interpret diverse aspects of the entrepreneurial phenomenon and provide insights into the way in which the entrepreneurial process itself unfolds. Originality/value The paper provides an innovative categorization of entrepreneurship as subject, process and object while discussing a variety of various entrepreneurial forms through their teleological nature within each of the three categories. The paper is valuable to scholars seeking to further advance their understanding in the various fields of entrepreneurship, understand the function of the particular set of activities to be undertaken, the role of particular individuals/agents involved in the entrepreneurial process, the opportunity identification/exploitation process as well as the particular objective that each entrepreneurial form aims at fulfilling.

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