Coupling engagement with analytical rigor: advancing research on religion and entrepreneurship using a mechanism-based approach

Secularization processes alongside supposed tensions between science and religion may partly explain the slow development of literature on the relationship between religion and entrepreneurship. Nevertheless, the overwhelming number of submissions we received for the present special issue of Small Business Economics suggests a profound interest in this topic by researchers from all around the globe. In many of these submissions, the researcher’s own personal values or beliefs explicitly or implicitly motivated the research question, shaped the research design, and steered the interpretation of outcomes – regrettably, although this engagement often being at the expense of the study’s analytical rigor. We explain how the Weberian distinction between value-neutrality and value-relevance can help to increase the rigor of studies on the relationship between religion and entrepreneurship. Moreover, we propose a mechanism-based approach to explain and test the multiple interrelationships between religion and entrepreneurship because such mechanisms are often assumed rather than empirically tested. By drawing on and extending Saroglou’s religious dimensions model, we structure potential mechanisms between religion and entrepreneurship as well as between entrepreneurship and religion.