The ideas and concepts developed above are not new. We can mention for example the stages of business growth theory as developed in our field by Churchill (1983), following the works of Steinmetz (1969) and Greiner (1972).
This perspective also relies on two semantic approaches.
The first one concerns the definition Stevenson gives of the entrepreneur, a definition that largely draws on Kirzner’s economist argumentation. Entrepreneurs are defined as individuals who are always on the lookout for new opportunities to capture: professional entrepreneurs can express themselves through the creation of a new organisation, or in other contexts (see in particular Stevenson and Jarillo 1990).
The second one is that proposed by Davidsson (1989), who tries to understand and explain the fact that some individuals can be entrepreneurs for life (which he calls ‘continued entrepreneurship’). He proposes to distinguish entrepreneurs from SME owners or managers along the following lines (Davidsson 1989: 6):