Mapping the aliran of the academic discipline of entrepreneurship: A ...

the processes developed by the individual, or the firm, and which becomes part of their
entrepreneurial resources, enables them not only to solve the problems, both usual and
unique, that arise, but also, to a degree, foresee such problems and have contingencies in
place for such eventualities. It is these traits and processes that I find lacking in the
entrepreneurship literature, however this may not solely a issue specific to
entrepreneurship. I suspect that most management academic literature faces a similar
dearth.
2.5.2.3.10 This criticism is more of an ontological issue than epistemological; however
it is an interesting perspective on the various epistemic practices that delimit the accepted
knowledge, and accepted processes of what is to be accepted within the discipline that this
ontological specification has not been included as part of the discipline.
2.5.3 The authorities of delimitations – epistemic practices
2.5.3.00 This section looks at the some of the issues regarding the role of the gate
keepers and episteme in acceptability of knowledge into the discipline of entrepreneurship.
2.5.3.01 While the emergent discipline of entrepreneurship has, in the past, been fostered
by the disciplines of soc iology, ps ychology, management, and (non-rational) economics, it
is only in the last 30 plus years that it has increasingly attempted to forge its own identity.
The previously cited references to the rapid expansion of the discipline in terms of
university courses, refereed journals, seminars, and conferences, present ‘all-too
convincing-to-be-contested evidence’ [Steyaert, 2005] of significant quantitative growth.
2.5.3.02 However, in light of the criticisms of the discipline, as outlined in the previous
section, it could be argued that the discipline is facing growing pains. Of Fabian’s three
paradigmic options of: a unified paradigm (solidarity), a selected few paradigms
(integration), or avoidance of dominant paradigms (segregation), it would seem that the
discipline has not achieved solidarity, its continua l search for new definitions precludes
any sense of integration. Yet it could also be questioned whether it has achieved any form
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