Final Summary

Saying someone is an entrepreneur, or an entrepreneurial event is occurring, is not like saying a permanent state exists in a person, organization or other social system. Entrepreneurship, occurring in open systems, is specific to time and place and therefore is likely to be transient. Therein is the management dilemma. Scientists want measures to be consistent and valid, but entrepreneurship is not consistent at overly a personality trait of the individual or the organization and its presence is not likely to be long lasting. The fact is that so many entrepreneurs become other kinds of managers and most growth firms eventually stabilize, only to shrivel and die. Is it any wonder that there is no valid and tested measurement scale for identifying potential entrepreneurs and events associated with then? Our instruments are frail and are easily contaminated by time, space and a host of biases are inherent in every measurement system. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that current instruments, methods and procedures ignore many of these facets and are not designed to measure the whole system during its transient journey. Current research approaches do not even try to measure forces that change from fresh to stale, real fast! A major step in curing some of these measurement problems is to think more systematically and environmentally, and orient methodologies accordingly. Unfortunately, I cannot undertake this monumental job here. I hope only to stir the imagination.