By Karen Axelton
Lots of research and study has been done about entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship, but much of it is academic, outdated (like government data that tells you what entrepreneurs were doing in 2006 when it’s almost 2011) or not that useful. A new project hopes to change that, reports the Boston Herald.
The Entrepreneurship Laboratory, a partnership between Babson College and the Business Innovation Factory in Rhode Island, will study entrepreneurs “on the ground” in an effort to learn more about how and why businesses are created and succeed or fail.
“We need to deepen our understanding of the every day experience of the entrepreneur on the ground,” Melissa Withers, executive director of the Business Innovation Factory, told the Herald.
While the laboratory is still in the planning stages and the researchers are still figuring out how they will study entrepreneurs, their focus will be on talking to real business owners in both startups and growing companies.
“We want to identify new opportunities to train and support entrepreneurs,” Babson professor Heidi Neck told the Herald.
Another goal for the laboratory is to improve entrepreneurial education by keeping up with changes going on in the world of entrepreneurship.
Policymakers have many ideas about how to help entrepreneurs, but all too often, they’re not based in reality. Any attempt to study how entrepreneurs truly work in the real world is a welcome addition to the world of small business.
