Nascent entrepreneurship panel studies: progress and challenges

Economics, history, organizational theory, psychology, public policy, social psychology, sociology, and strategy have all had something to say about business creation. Though the multiple lenses have produced important insights, they have not always defined the phenomenon in terms that can easily be translated from one discipline to another. Operational definitions differ. Convenience samples may suffer from retrospective biases. However, representative samples are expensive to gather. The Panel Studies of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED) are almost alone in examining the actions of entrepreneurs at the time they are organizing their businesses. This Special Issue presents a selected set of refereed papers involving the Norwegian PSED (NPSED) and Swedish PSEDs (SPSED) as well as PSED I and PSED II from the USA. In the context of highlighting the articles in this issue, some insights are offered about the kinds of research accomplishments that have been achieved. Challenges for future research on nascent entrepreneurs are also suggested.