Importing knowledge from psychology: how it broadens the scope of entrepreneurship research—and helps it avoid the “multi-tower effect”

Communication between different fields in universities is often hindered by the “multi-tower” problem: each focuses on its own questions and issues and tends to ignore work in other, even closely related ones. This occurs in part, because each field has its own terminology theories, journals, and conferences and because university policies claiming ownership of researchers’ findings restrict them from sharing this knowledge with others. Entrepreneurship, by welcoming input from many different sources—economics, sociology, strategic management, and psychology—avoids the “multi-tower” problem; this is one of its important strengths. In his own work, the author has sought to broaden the range of entrepreneurship research by “importing” findings and theory from psychology that are relevant to understanding entrepreneurs, the personal factors that affect their success, and important aspects of the entrepreneurial process overall. Entrepreneurship is open to input from several different fields—economics, strategic management, and psychology. This is a strength that facilitates its sophistication and progress. In his research, the author has sought to “import” knowledge, findings, and theory from psychology to entrepreneurship research and theory. This helped expand the scope of entrepreneurship and contributed to the understanding of entrepreneurs and several aspects of the entrepreneurial process. The research findings have implications for future research and education of potential entrepreneurs.