Van Burg, E., Cornelissen, J., Stam, W., and Jack S. (2020) ‘Advancing qualitative entrepreneurship research: leveraging methodological plurality for achieving scholarly impact’. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. August 2020.

This is a short article by the editors of this influential journal, including Sarah Jack (Case 2.54). They discuss how and why qualitative research methods can be used to study entrepreneurship. The authors encourage researchers to use a variety of methods in order to uncover more about their subject. They also suggest how researchers can combine relevant theories with qualitative evidence in order to make useful contributions to our understanding of the subject.

Swan, C. D., and Morgan, D. (2016) ‘Who wants to be an eco-entrepreneur?: identifying entrepreneurial types and practices in ecotourism businesses’. The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 17, 2: 120–32.

Within the small-business sector of ecotourism, entrepreneurs must balance competing goals pertaining to business objectives, lifestyle aspirations and, most importantly, sustainable environmental practices. This study reports how ecotourism eco-entrepreneurs perceive and manage these goals, consistent with concerns and motivations, based on semi-structured interviews of small business operators. The findings show that eco-entrepreneurs’ social and sustainable characteristics are critical to overcome financially challenging and complex operating environments while also delivering a desired lifestyle. As a business strategy, eco-entrepreneurs were found to deliberately maintain small, low-impact ecotourism operations consistent with identified eco-values.

Tlaiss, H. A. (2013) ‘Entrepreneurial motivations of women: evidence from the United Arab Emirates’. International Small Business Journal, 33, 5: 562–81.

This article explores the entrepreneurial motivations of women entrepreneurs in the United Arab Emirates. It analyses the impact of macro social forces and cultural values on the motivation for entrepreneurship and explores how post-materialism, legitimation and dissatisfaction theories may explain these motives. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with local women entrepreneurs and analysed using an interpretive approach. The results illustrate how Emirati women entrepreneurs navigate the patriarchy of their society, socio-economic realities and structural and attitudinal organisational barriers to construct and negotiate their entrepreneurial motivations.