International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal 1, 5–7, 2005c© 2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. Manufactured in The United States.

Linking Entrepreneurship and Management:Welcome to the International Entrepreneurshipand Management Journal

DAVID B. AUDRETSCHIndiana University

GARY J. CASTROGIOVANNIUniversity of Tulsa

DOMINGO RIBEIROSALVADOR ROIGUniversity of Valencia, Spain

It is widely recognized that the success and vitality of entrepreneurship are essentialfactors in measuring an economy’s progress, its quality and its future expectations.Entrepreneurship is closely related to SMEs and large companies in local, regional,national or international markets, in private and public organizations and helps leadto competitiveness in the face of the effects of globalization. Entrepreneurial activitiesare important in creating new economic activity which in turn increases innovation,employment, economic wealth and growth, consolidates competitiveness in advancedeconomies and assures social welfare in less economically developed countries.

A developing field

‘Who’ is an entrepreneur and ‘what’ constitutes entrepreneurship are subject to a hotdebate that has been ongoing since the time the concept first appeared in Cantil-lon’s (1755) Essai sur la nature du commerce en general. Nevertheless, research in en-trepreneurship has increased rapidly in recent decades. “Since the first known Americanentrepreneurship course was taught at Harvard University by Myles Mace in 1947”(Brush, Duhaime, Gartner, Stewart, Katz, Hitt, Alvarez, Meyer and Venkataraman,2003: 310), outstanding work marking the starting point of the field of entrepreneurshipincludes, Harvard Studies in Business History and the Journal of Business and EconomicHistory, along with Explorations in Entrepreneurial History. All this culminated in1958 with the creation of the Harvard Research Center in Entrepreneurial History,with Arthur H. Cole as director. Other events which marked the growing importanceof the entrepreneurship field were (a) the first conference at the University of Coloradoin 1956, organized by the National Council for Small Business (predecessor of the

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International Council for Small Business formed in 1977), (b) the creation in 1974 ofthe Academy of Management’s Entrepreneurship Division, and (c) the first conferenceat Babson College in 1981 with the publication of the conference proceedings, Frontiersof Entrepreneurship Research. The role of the entrepreneur has been explored in inter-national small business journals such as (a) The Journal of Small Business Management(since 1963), (b) The Journal of Business Venturing (since 1985), (c) Entrepreneurship:Theory and Practice (since 1988; previously published under the title of The AmericanJournal of Small Business), and (d) Small Business Economics (since 1989). It has alsobeen featured, though to a lesser extent, in international management journals. For ex-ample, special issues on entrepreneurship have appeared in The Strategic ManagementJournal and The Journal of Management.

Enter IEMJ

Considering the growing importance attributed to entrepreneurship have acquired inrecent times, and the recognition of “entrepreneurship as a field of study within man-agement” (Busenitz, West III, Shepherd, Nelson, Chandler and Zacharakis, 2003: 286),it is surprising that no existing publication specifically addresses the inextricable linkbetween entrepreneurship and management. Furthermore, “the fields of entrepreneur-ship and strategic management have developed largely independently each other” (Hitt,Ireland, Camp and Sexton, 2001: 480). The International Entrepreneurship and Man-agement Journal (IEMJ) is intended to fill this gap. As its name implies, this journal willoffer a fresh, innovative and exciting look at the relationship between “entrepreneur-ship” and “management,” which are basic elements of a healthy economy, and whichneed to be integrated (McGrath and MacMillan, 2000; Meyer and Heppard, 2000).

Over time, we hope that this publication will become a nexus for all discussions ofmatters dealing with the linkage between entrepreneurship and management. IEMJ willprovide a forum for new theories, technological advancements, investigations and themost relevant up-to-date case studies, based upon the utmost academic rigor. Our goal ismake IEMJ the journal of choice for individuals engaged in academic study, consulting,or administration, dealing with the entrepreneurship-management interface in eitherthe private or public sector.

IEMJ will publish high quality manuscripts pertaining to entrepreneurship, in itsbroad sense, and the management of entrepreneurial organizations. The journal willexpand the study of entrepreneurship and management by publishing innovative arti-cles based on different perspectives using a variety of methodological approaches andshowing the practical implications of research for its readership. It will be unique, pro-viding a multi-disciplinary forum for researchers, scholars, consultants, entrepreneurs,businesspersons, managers and practitioners in the field of entrepreneurship. Aspectsof micro (individual), firm and macro (global) economics will be examined using avariety of perspectives—e.g., psychological, socio-cultural or institutional (Veciana,1999). The relationship between entrepreneurship and management will be addressedin conceptual and empirical papers, case studies of successful firms or other cases

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having important practical implications and book reviews, leading to an improvementin the understanding of international entrepreneurial perspectives of the organizationsconcerned.

IEMJ, initially a quarterly publication with a view to increasing the number to six inthe future, will publish original papers which contribute to the advancement of the fieldof entrepreneurship and the interface between management and entrepreneurship, aswell as articles on business corporate strategy and government economic policy.

Our invitation to you

We the Editors of IEMJ seek contributions to the journal of researchers, scholars orconsultants from a variety of disciplines, including economics, international businessand management, organizational theory, psychology, sociology, and strategic manage-ment. Some of those works could develop new theoretical perspectives, while otherscould test previously unexamined theoretical explanations for successful entrepreneur-ship, entrepreneurial strategies, strategic entrepreneurship or entrepreneurial manage-ment (Stevenson and Jarillo, 1990). In return, we offer timely and developmental re-views, and an international audience for your work.

References

Busenitz, L.W., West III, G.P., Shepherd, D., Nelson, T., Chandler, G.N. & Zacharakis, A. 2003. Entrepreneur-ship research in emergence: Past trends and future directions. Journal of Management, 29: 285–308.

Brush, C., Duhaime, I.M., Gartner, W.B., Stewart, A., Katz, J.A., Hitt, M.A., Alvarez, S.A., Meyer, G.D. &Venkataraman, S. 2003. Doctoral education in the field of entrepreneurship. Journal of Management, 29:309–331.

Cantillon, R. 1755. Essai sur la nature du commerce en general. Translated by Higgs, H. 1931. OxfordUniversity Press: Oxford.

Hitt, M.A., Ireland, R.D., Camp, S.M. & Sexton, D.L. 2001. Guest editors’ introduction to the special issuestrategic entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurial strategies for wealth creation. Strategic Management Journal,22: 479–491.

McGrath, R.G. & MacMillan, I. 2000. The entrepreneurial mindset. Boston, MA: Harvard Business SchoolPress.

Meyer, G.D. & Heppard, K.A. 2000. Entrepreneurship as strategy: Competing on the entrepreneurial edge.Sage: Thousand Oaks, CA.

Stevenson, H.H. & Jarillo, J.C. 1990. A paradigm of entrepreneurship research: Entrepreneurial management.Strategic Management Journal, 11: 17–27.

Veciana, J.M. 1999. Creacion de empresas como programa de investigacion cientıfica. Revista Europea deDireccion y Economıa de la Empresa, 8(3): 11–36.