Introduction
Who are the New Entrepreneurs, and How are they Creating Business Today?

Over the last 30 years, entrepreneurship has developed around the world in accordance to the different cultural, political, economic and social contexts.

Governments promote entrepreneurship as a way to improve economic grow. Business creation is assisted through various means such as support structures (incubators and accelerators) and different types of financing (governmental loans without interest rate, crowdfunding, microfinance, etc.). Consequently, the entrepreneurial panorama evolves and no longer resembles what it was.

At the same time, if capitalism changes [BOU 99, BOU 15, HER 06], entrepreneurship also changes. New entrepreneurial forms emerge, and different entrepreneurs find their place in deconstructing existing, traditional and codified social relationships [ALT 12]. If being an entrepreneur has become a fashion, it is probably because entrepreneurship is a plural and complex economic and social fact which evolves in time and space according to the diversity of their ecosystems [ALR 11]. It is then necessary to know how to decode it, according to time, situation and territory [TOU 06].

For example, while the spotlight is often focused on the American Silicon Valley or the British City Tech, it is clear that entrepreneurship is growing well beyond the developed economies of North America and the old Europe. Thus, going by the percentage of people in a country that own a company and pay wages, entrepreneurship is more present in Africa, Asia or South America. Indeed, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report [GEM 14], Uganda ranks first with the highest per capita business creation rate (28.1%), followed by Thailand (16.7%) and Brazil (13.8%). The United States is in the 41st place with 4.3% of entrepreneurs, and France is at the bottom of the ranking with a rate of new business creation of only 1.7%.

As Julien and Marchesnay [JUL 96] proposed, have we entered at the beginning of the 21st Century in the era of the “entrepreneurial and creative capitalism”? It seems to be the case, since even prestigious academic journals, although cautious when it comes to integrating less conventional research, devote special issues to the need to rethink old entrepreneurial models [JEN 05, ZAH 11, TED 12].

Despite the age of the concept (which probably dates from the 16th Century), entrepreneurship is paradoxically a relatively young discipline of study. Crossed by many currents, various debates were necessary to define “entrepreneurship” and understand the specificity of the entrepreneur.

It was only in 2000 that entrepreneurship started to be considered as an academic discipline in its own right with its own questions and theories. It probably began with the article of Shane and Venkataraman [SHA 00] “The Promise of Entrepreneurship as a Field of Research”, recognized by the Academy of Management as the best management article in the last decade. The prospects for research are broad. They range from the study of the individual (the entrepreneur) to that of the company, the environment or the entrepreneurial process. Nevertheless, there is still much research based on economic approaches that take into account factors of utility, maximization or cost to explain the entrepreneurial activity. For example: labor economics focuses on the choice between starting a business (self-employment) and looking for a job; microeconomics studies the success and growth of the new enterprises; and macroeconomics analyzes the way of promoting economic growth. However, those economic theories struggle to explain the diversity of entrepreneurial profiles, especially when their goal moves away from a quest to maximize profits.

Often considered complex, entrepreneurship varies according to the entrepreneur’s profile and the possibilities of the environment [GAR 85]. From the advent of the lifestyle entrepreneur to the development of the social entrepreneurship, new entrepreneurial figures emerge beyond the stereotype of the classical entrepreneur (Schumpeterian or Kirznerian). In so doing, they question the validity of the theories and analytical approaches to entrepreneurship, themselves still recent.

This book is in line with this reality, and describes some of the new profiles of entrepreneurs that are creating the entrepreneurial economy of the 21st Century as well as analyzing the contextual aspects. It presents a substantial body of knowledge about entrepreneurship in a theoretical and pragmatic way in order to help readers to understand what entrepreneurship means today. As an original essay supported by recognized academic readings, this book can be a reference for researchers interested in the evolution of entrepreneurship since it is based on academic literature. Moreover, it is also illustrated by socioeconomic information and case studies in an international scope that can be used as course material for masters-level courses on entrepreneurship.

Two main questions are explicitly studied in this book: who are the new figures of entrepreneurs and how are they creating the companies of the future? Each issue is discussed in a part of the book. The rest of this introduction allows us to briefly present the two parts and the six chapters of the book.

First part: Who are the new entrepreneurs of the 21st Century?

Following a line of research based on the observation of the new profiles of entrepreneurs, the first part of the book takes an in-depth look at understanding who the business creators of the 21st Century are. Therefore, the first chapters develop studies of various patterns such as women, the young, the old, the disabled and the social entrepreneur. The objective is to understand their motivation, the kind of companies they create, the particular problems they face and how they deal with them.

Chapter 1 “Entrepreneurship and high heels” focuses on women’s entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship by women is a major question. It helps to understand not only the place of women in business, but also in society. Women’s entrepreneurship is now recognized worldwide as a leading global trend with significant economic, social and political consequences. But the panorama of women entrepreneurship has become complex and different motivational profiles coexist. In particular, the creation of business by women, their motivation and the type of company created will be related to the lifecycle of the women and their family.

We complete the first chapter with the analysis of three main types that appear regularly in research in women’s entrepreneurship: women entrepreneurs by necessity, women in an entrepreneurial career (or career transition) and women entrepreneurs at the time of maternity (mompreneurs).

Chapter 2 “Entrepreneurship for all ages” points out that entrepreneurship is not limited by age. The generalization of the entrepreneurial spirit throughout society, as well as problems in the job market, has allowed the development of an entrepreneurial motivation among individuals of all ages. Following different paths and objectives, young people, middle career managers and seniors in retirement consider entrepreneurship as a valid career option.

Young people from Y generation wish to create a better world without limits through entrepreneurship and innovation. They do not accept relinquishing their personal time for a job or money. Thus, they decide to create their own business to be autonomous and to live their passion. For managers in their 40s, entrepreneurship appears as a new step in a career. This change of direction is not considered a break but continuity in their professional life. Most of them are disappointed by their job in big corporations. They do not find satisfaction anymore and are in search of a better life, with ethical values and a work–life balance. At the other end of working life, seniors in retirement are creating companies to complete their income, or because they wish to continue developing an active and fulfilling life.

Chapter 3 “Entrepreneurship without limits” is devoted to the understanding of very different kinds of entrepreneurs. We introduce two types of entrepreneurs who defend other values. First, the social entrepreneur, trying to solve social problems through business creation. Second, the handipreneur, or the disabled entrepreneur, who develops entrepreneurship as a way to create conditions allowing social integration.

The various types of entrepreneurial activity and entrepreneurs presented in Chapter 3 are far beyond the boundaries of the classic profile of an entrepreneur, by opportunity or by necessity. Indeed, they are empathic entrepreneurs acting to solve critical social problems. We analyze their characteristics and challenges, and the way they behave, becoming a salvation cushion for our societies.

Second part: How are new entrepreneurs creating business today?

The second part of the book presents alternative views to explain entrepreneurial behavior, based on how entrepreneurs do business in real life. The book proposes a useful and practical approach to the understanding of the way new entrepreneurs are creating business today.

Three perspectives are developed following the new trends in society: networks and social capital; entrepreneurial support and learning; and a presentation of some new theories of entrepreneurship.

Chapter 4 “The entrepreneurial connection” provides an overview of the important role of social interactions for the development of entrepreneurship. The entrepreneur is no longer seen as solitary, but as “embedded” in society. Scholars recognize that entrepreneurship is socially situated and that the social environment affects individuals and the organization, allowing opportunities for discovery and exploitation. Entrepreneurs need social interactions to build and run businesses. Networking becomes a crucial issue and individuals invest time and effort in building up their social capital, just as they do for other more tangible forms of capital. Chapter 4 describes major approaches to network and social capital theories. It also focuses on the relationship between entrepreneurial creation, social network, trust and social capital.

Chapter 5 “Improving the expansion of business creation” provides an overview of the different kinds of support developed for the creation of firms. Entrepreneurs need a nurturing environment, hands-on assistance and a variety of other resources and services during the startup phase. In the first section of this chapter, the focus is on business incubators. Business incubators are organizations that support the entrepreneurial process, helping to increase survival rates for startup companies. They provide infrastructure (so that firms can settle down at a reduced cost), transmission of information, and knowledge and access to networks to allow new enterprises to find sources of financing.

The first section of this chapter presents the different types of support structures, focussing on the issues of selection of projects, trust, contracts and transmission of knowledge inside incubators. The second section of this chapter discusses the contribution of entrepreneurial education to fostering entrepreneurial creation and shows as an example the case of France with the development of the “Pepite” program inside universities.

Chapter 6 “Building new theories to understand entrepreneurship” presents brand new approaches to the understanding of entrepreneurial behavior. As influential scholars have emphasized recently, entrepreneurship is a context-based phenomenon. Thus, the emergence of new profiles of an entrepreneur challenges researchers to adapt economic theories to explain those new realities of the business creation.

In Chapter 6, two key aspects of entrepreneurship are raised. In the first section, an adaptation to the push and pull model of entrepreneurial motivation is proposed. In this adaptation, entrepreneurial motivation is considered a complex subject, composed of multiple factors. The new approach allows individuals the choice and assembly of the different elements that better correspond to their motivation.

In the second section, new theories about the entrepreneurial process are developed. The classical point of view explains the entrepreneurial process as a causal one, starting with the fixation of objectives, the gathering of resources and the implementation of a strategy to attain those goals. Recent studies on entrepreneurial processes have questioned this approach and propose new alternatives to understanding better business creation, such as those of effectuation and bricolage, developed in the second section of Chapter 6.

We hope you enjoy reading.