ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a historical perspective of the existing research on business transfers. It explains the business transfer process in the context of entry and exit entrepreneurial theories. ‘Transfer’ implies both that there is something to transfer from an issuer to a receiver and the path from the one to the other. Different fields also use the term ‘transfer’, for example law, IT, photography, psychology, psychoanalysis and sport. The word ‘transfer’ serves to unite researchers around the same topic. As the modes of business transfers are numerous and specific, researchers have to be precise about which transfer modes they refer to. Based on these entrepreneurial entry and exit modes, Deschamps visualises the business transfer process as two ‘faces’ of the same practice, each face leading to the entrepreneurial transfer process. The chapter describes the evolution of knowledge about business transfers and suggests a consensus on definition and vocabulary in order to build an international research community around this topic.
