Introduction to the Research Handbook on Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies

This chapter provides an introduction to this Handbook that aims to provide a range of contextualized perspectives on entrepreneurship in emerging economies. We begin by providing definitions of the term ‘Context’ and identify the contexts of relevance to entrepreneurship such as the social and institutional context. We recognize that the theories, processes and practices of entrepreneurship in emerging economies are likely to vary markedly from those in developed post-industrial economies. This perspective is adopted because we consider the national context that shapes incentives for both opportunity and necessity entrepreneurial efforts to differ in emerging economies. Next, we provide some statistics on emerging economy entrepreneurship in order to establish a foundation from which to synthesize some key literature, before we outline the chapters that appear in this Handbook. We conclude with future research directions.