A Review and Recommendation of Simulation Methodologies for Entrepreneurship Research

Abstract

Management scholars have used computer simulation models to build and test theories for more than forty years. Entrepreneurship scholars, however, maintained their theoretical distance from management’s methodologies while pursuing domain legitimacy and distinct research boundaries. As the field matured, senior entrepreneurship scholars broadly called for the use of simulation as a means for developing methodologically rigorous, domain-specific theory. Nevertheless, in a competitive publish-or-perish environment, these calls were not detailed enough to motivate the field to alter the course of their research. This paper provides a primer, an outline, and specific examples of how simulation methods can apply to entrepreneurship’s current research agenda. Reviews of three simulation software toolkits induce scholars to use these methods as a means of furthering the legitimacy of the field and pushing the domain to the forefront of social science research.

Keywords: Simulation, agent-based modeling, theory building, entrepreneurship, entrepreneur, methodology, methods, research agenda

JEL Classification: M13, E17, E27