Research Design

This piece from the Big Four Blog, which purports to be showing what a marvellous, resiliant lot entrepreneurs are, is typical of the flawed research evident in much management literature.

The intention of the piece, to paint E&Y with the magic paint that is 'entrepreneurialism' is nonsense upon stilts. A fact which may have been hinted at by the early statement that:

"Entrepreneurs are hardy folks. Undeterred by current circumstances....".

Which flies in the face of all evidence that minor things like, say, unavailable credit, cuts in consumer spending and buyers hammering their suppliers, hit SMEs and start-ups disproportionally.

On top of the general twittery of the article direction, it is evident on further reading that the 'evidence' has been taken, not from balance sheets, VAT returns or VC analysts but by, ahem, asking entrepreneurs questions like:

'are you pursuing growth opportunities?'

'do you wish to implement technology for higher business efficiency?' etc...

Note that these are aspirational, rather than actual. It's like asking Gordon Brown 'do you wish you were popular?'. The answer has little to do with the reality.