Small business, innovation, and entrepreneurship

The purpose of this special issue is to examine small businesses, innovation, and entrepreneurship, and show that, although these three concepts have their own specific literature and can be dealt with independently, they are closely related. From Schumpeter to the present, a stream of literature unites the concept of entrepreneurship with its ability to make new combinations of factors and corresponding innovations in processes and products; similarly, in a broad stream of literature, the most characteristic dimension of entrepreneurship is closely linked to small businesses. Small and large companies have different advantages and drawbacks with innovation, but small businesses provide the most conducive environment for entrepreneurship and innovation that are not necessarily sustained by the know-how and resources characteristic of large-scale production, but require commitment and close cooperation between company members. In this introduction, we show how the three topics converge in four articles dealing with micro-start-ups and innovation, institutional determinants of entrepreneurship, and determining factors in entrepreneurs’ individual characteristics.