The intersection of entrepreneurship and selling: an interdisciplinary review, framework, and future research agenda.

Matthews, Russell S.; Chalmers, Dominic M.; Fraser, Simon S.

Abstract

Selling is integral to entrepreneurship, yet it has rarely been a focal topic of analysis for entrepreneurship scholars. To address this, we undertake a broad-ranging systematic literature review of research that in some way explores selling within entrepreneurial contexts. We inductively develop a framework that orders extant research into selling antecedents, activities, contexts, and outcomes. Then, drawing on these entrepreneurship-selling intersections, we suggest opportunity theory can be extended by integrating critical insights from selling literatures. In particular, we address ego-centric views of entrepreneurship which prioritize entrepreneurial agency, and advocate for the incorporation of customer agency into synchronized processes of opportunity identification, refinement, and exploitation. The article concludes that a promising avenue for future theory development resides in the study of situated sales interactions, which can serve as an empirical vista to the underexplored entrepreneur-customer nexus.

Citation

MATTHEWS, R.S., CHALMERS, D.M. and FRASER, S.S. 2018. The intersection of entrepreneurship and selling: an interdisciplinary review, framework, and future research agenda. Journal of business venturing [online], 33(6), pages 691-719. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2018.04.008

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 23, 2018
• Online Publication Date: May 1, 2018
• Publication Date: Nov 30, 2018
• Deposit Date: Jun 22, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: May 2, 2020
• Journal: Journal of business venturing
• Print ISSN: 0883-9026
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 33
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 691-719
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2018.04.008
• Keywords: Selling; Entrepreneurship; Systematic literature review; Entrepreneurship selling intersections; Consumer behaviour; Health; Environmenal impact
• Public URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10059/2961