Abstract
By its very nature, entrepreneurship is processual and social (Aldrich and Zimmer, 1986). Even if these two observations are now largely consensual (Gedajlovic et al., 2013; Hoang and Antoncic, 2003; Slotte-Kock and Coviello, 2010), we observe a paradox. This observation about entrepreneurship was explicitly made very early on in the field in the seminal work of Aldrich and Zimmer (1986: 3), who emphasized ‘two essential issues that research on entrepreneurship must address: (1) entrepreneurship is a process and must be viewed in dynamic terms rather than in cross-sectional snapshots; and (2) entrepreneurship requires linkages or relations between key components of the process’. However, recent work by Slotte- Kock and Coviello (2010: 48) considered that ‘the entrepreneurship literature has only just begun to investigate how network relationships are developed and transformed’.The chapters in this book consider two essential issues relating to entrepreneurship: process and the social dimension. In dealing with these issues, this book aims to go ‘one step beyond’ (Lamine et al., 2015)1 with the aim of enhancing knowledge and understanding about these issues and so contribute to a better appreciation of the connection between the entrepreneurial process and social networks.