According to Joseph Schumpeter, entrepreneurs introduce new combinations that create market disequilibria. However, entrepreneurs also create their businesses by acting on already existing opportunity, thereby moving markets towards equilibrium. In any case, entrepreneurs change the economy by creating new economic activity. The overarching theme of this thesis is the conceptualization, operationalization and application of new economic activity as level of analysis in entrepreneurship research. Using a unique representative real-time longitudinal dataset of genuinely new firms (7000+ cases), a number of central issues in entrepreneurship are investigated. Performance and survival of new independent ventures, the capacity of young firms for continued entrepreneurship, the search for opportunity and the market newness of new ventures are some of the topics investigated.

The thesis consists of two parts. Part one contains an introduction to common theory and methods as well as supplementing commentaries on the included papers. In addition, it also includes the overall conclusions on research methodology and entrepreneurship. Part two consists of six full papers on entrepreneurship that collectively assess the process and performance of the entrepreneurial event – the creation of new economic activity.