The purpose of the SIG Entrepreneurship is to develop an ongoing and constructive dialogue among entrepreneurship scholars to conduct research that is relevant for entrepreneurship theory and practice in the contemporary world. The SIG Entrepreneurship aims at promoting research and networking interests in individual and collaborative forms of entrepreneurship by providing a wide-ranging, engaged and internationally focused forum to discuss and develop research and practice in the field. We put a distinct focus on the key European feature – ‘context matters’ – why we try in all activities to promote and stimulate what ‘European’ might mean in any given context and any approach of entrepreneurship research.
SIG Officers:
Massimiliano M. Pellegrini, SIG chair (University of West London, UK) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Lucrezia Songini, Past SIG chair (Eastern Piedmont University, Italy) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Hans Lundberg Funding/past SIG chair (Linnaeus University, Sweden) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Benedicte Brogger, SIG chair Elected (BI Norwegian Business School, Norway) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Matthias Raith Programme chair (Otto-von-Guericke University, Germany) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Karim Messeghem Programme chair Elected (University of Montpellier, France) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
For more detail on each track, please download the related document. If you cannot see the whole text on any of the Excel pages, please double-click.
GT 03 _00 Entrepreneurship General Track
Entrepreneurship is a working attitude, a mode of thinking, a concrete everyday practice and increasingly an identity marker for ways of being and living within liquid modernity. Entrepreneurship is nowadays a broadly endorsed and accepted signifier for forms of organizing that targets human, organisational, and economic renewal and growth. While empirical evidence for these politically and individually appealing ends are to be found, the contingency and “contextuality” of the myriad of entrepreneurial forms of organizing may humble us in face of the elusive quality of entrepreneurship.
Accordingly, and in line with our mission – methodological, theoretical and empirical pluralism in entrepreneurship research – we welcome contributions from all areas related to entrepreneurship that are not explicitly covered by the other tracks sponsored by the SIG. Papers adopting different theoretical lenses, using different research methods, analysing different types of organizations and exploring entrepreneurship less common empirical contexts are strongly encouraged.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP STANDING TRACKS
ST 03_01 Social Entrepreneurship and Societal Change
There has been a “social turn” in business. Business was slow to absorb ideas about sustainability, stakeholders’ interests and social enterprise, but today is way ahead of policy makers and the research community in their knowledge of conditions for and consequences of integrating social, environmental and economic concerns. This track welcomes papers that investigate the impact of social and environmental concerns in the strategies of new ventures or existing business units, as well as inquiries about formation of social enterprises or other social movements in the business. On the other hand, we also invite authors that take the opposite point of view and investigate the influence of entrepreneurial activities on institutional, environmental and societal contexts.
ST 03_02 Academic Entrepreneurship and the Entrepreneurial University
The term “entrepreneurial university” focuses on universities considered as firms/enterprises and this situation confronting such institutions with new incentive systems and new types of research. Moreover, the university itself can act as a market participant equipped with the competence to produce innovative spin offs or directly market its research creating innovation stimuli within a regional ecosystem. Thus, the purpose of this track is to attract theoretical and empirical papers dealing with academic entrepreneurship, the transition to the entrepreneurial university, and impacts of these developments on the structure and development of the (regional) ecosystem.
ST 03_03 Entrepreneurial Finance
Small businesses are the backbone of economies and drivers of both economic development and employment. Yet, these firms often suffer from financing constraints which limit their growth and threaten their survival. Despite the relevance of the “classic” forms of capital, in recent years a whole set of innovative financial instruments have emerged. Nowadays numerous ways to raise capital are available to entrepreneurs in science and technology start-ups such as accelerators and incubators, proof-of-concept centers, university-based seed funds, crowdfunding platforms, and IP-backed financial instruments. Are new forms capitals for small businesses going to replace venture capital and angel finance? If not, what is the competitive advantage of VCs and business angels? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each form of capital? In situations of crises (e.g. economic crises, natural disasters), what type of finance is available to entrepreneurs? What is the impact of these forms of capital on survival and growth of small businesses? When and why an entrepreneur should favour a particular form of financing over another?
ENTREPRENEURSHIP 2016 TRACKS
T 03_04 Internationalization & Growth Strategies for SME
SMEs business strategies have been recently marked by increasing levels of internationalization. This evolution is not limited to exports or international outsourcing: it is indeed a brand new way of doing business. The phenomenon involves management of all business functions. Internationalization of SMEs is challenging existing knowledge. Management scholars are invited to provide new perspectives about international entrepreneurial strategies of SMEs, their challenges and evolving business models, in relation to countries of destination, timing and entry mode, managerial tools, organizational structure, quality of acquired knowledge, importance of international relations, relationships with multinationals. Theoretical contributions, reflections, empirical analyses are welcome, provided they focus on SMEs reality.
T 03_05 Entrepreneurship, Regions and Regional Development
The main power of regional contexts is their ability to incubate high level of entrepreneurial activities, greater engagement with the global networks of production, employment, creation of first-class thinkers, researchers, educators and entrepreneurs, so to increase quality of the society and the economy.The following broad set of the topics will be considered: How does innovation and entrepreneurial behaviors evolve and diffuse over hierarchical social networks in private and public organizations? What are the effects of contents and contexts, type and medium of knowledge and information spreading, hierarchy of socio-technological nodes and processing through regions? How to measure regional entrepreneurship success through science communications and networking? How did entrepreneurs connect to one another, to what ends, and with what results?
T 03_06 Entrepreneurial Emotions and Passion
Entrepreneurship is considered a very emotional journey, because of the close bond between the founder and the venture, because of the extreme uncertainty and the high personal risk involved. Emotions and affect in generally, has been found to influence judgements and decision making, as well as behaviour. Specifically, passion is one emotion which has been recognized as the most important motivator for entrepreneurial action. This track opens interesting discussions on the emergence and determinants of various emotions and of passion in entrepreneurship, as well as the consequences on various outcomes such as opportunity creation, creativity, or decision-making.
T 03_ 07 Gender Issues in Entrepreneurship: What We Know and What We Should Know (Co-sponsored with the GRDO SIG -05)
This track aims to increase the interest in these directions: government and other supporting policies and programs of gendered entrepreneurship, profiles of male and female entrepreneurs, gender and new business creations, determinants, motivations and constraints of gender in entrepreneurship, gender and innovation, gender and entrepreneurial intentions, perspectives on gender-based enterprises, growing, managing and planning the business, gendered understanding of corporate entrepreneurship, gender and economic growth, gender entrepreneurship in western and emerging economies, differences and similarities between male and female entrepreneurs, inspiring stories.
T 03_08 Entrepreneurship: the role of freelancers /solo-employed and family members
A new type of solo self-employed freelancer has emerged as the entreprenuerial economy has grown in importance. These freelancers are less the traditional precariat vulnerable workers who are viewed as low quality substitutes for employees, and more highly flexible and innovative workers who enable businesses to be entrepreneurial. They not only bring innovation directly to firms but also enable businesses to cope with uncertain, dynamic and risky business environments. They enable both large and small businesses to be agile and flexible. This special track is focused on addressing some of the key research questions that are relevant for practice and policy in this area.This track also aims to stimulate a scientific dialogue on balancing entrepreneurial spirit and attitudes with managerialization and professionalization in family businesses.
T 03_12 Cultural Entrepreneurship and Arts Management
The arts and cultural sector and in particular, the creative industries, are growing in Europe and in other western countries, as well as in Asia, with 100 arts management courses in China alone. They have become one of the most important and innovative economic sectors, investigated from Florida’s US-centric position to Howkins Euro-centric view. In addition, a scientific focus on entrepreneurship and management in the creative arts seems necessary – for e.g. human resource management or governance issues. The track Cultural Entrepreneurship and Arts Management focuses on research and innovative management practices in the two interwoven areas of arts management and cultural entrepreneurship, linking the scientific and scholarly interests of the two strands of management research. In this context, the topics of key antecedents, effects and specifics of cultural entrepreneurship need to be explored from a theoretical perspective as well as in practice.