The Role of Context for Theory Development: Evidence From Entrepreneurship Research on Russia

Abstract

To better understand the role of context for theory development in entrepreneurship, we build a theoretical framework which captures four aspects of the “theory to context” and “context to theory” interplay. We use the results from a literature review of entrepreneurship research on Russia published in leading journals over the past 30-year period to test our framework and show how contextualization enhances theoretical development in the entrepreneurship field and how context theorizing leads to the development of new theories. We propose ideas for the development of indigenous theory of Russian entrepreneurship based on the specificity of history and geography.