Theorizing Religion and Entrepreneurship: A Process and Christian Application

Abstract Research is expanding at the intersection of religion and entrepreneurship, here understood as the recognition, creation or seizing of opportunities to originate services and goods motivated by the cultural and ideological beliefs, practices, outcomes, or a combination of these that are rooted in religious faith. Unfortunately, this growing research suffers from theoretical underspecification, which leads to difficulties in predictive explanations and equivocal empirical results. A new model is needed to address this issue and improve theorizing by identifying religious bases of shared beliefs, delineating religious or theological meanings and concepts, theorizing from religious concepts to entrepreneurial constructs, and illustrating the applicability of the constructs in entrepreneurship. Theological insights can be leveraged across Christianity from the Nicene Creed (universal church, baptism, remission of sins, and resurrection) to articulate five theoretical building blocks (solidarity, relational identity, grace, stewardship, and redemptive hope) for entrepreneurship research. These building blocks illuminate how this process increases theoretical explanation and prediction for central issues of entrepreneurship related to the entrepreneur, opportunity, and resources. This process can be used within and across other religions to provide a stronger foundation for research on religion and entrepreneurship.