European Council for Small Business and Entrepreneurship
Engaged entrepreneurship research in Europe

Conducting Experiments in Entrepreneurship Research Special Interest Group

Acronym: Experiments SIG 

Short content and objectives

The Experiments in Entrepreneurship Research SIG aims to bring together and support researchers who conduct or want to know more about conducting experiments in entrepreneurship research. Experimental designs provide a powerful lens to determine causality (Colquitt, 2008) and have been labeled “the most rigorous of all research designs” (Trochim, 2001: 191). However, relatively few entrepreneurship studies use an experimental design (Aguinis & Lawal, 2012). Recently, several calls have been made for more experimental studies in entrepreneurship research (e.g., Williams et al., 2019). In this SIG, we aim to support scholars who are working on studies in entrepreneurship using an experimental design.

With this SIG we aim to strengthen the community within ECSB interested in learning about and conducting experiments in entrepreneurship research.

Planned activities

Flow of annual activities for the SIG:

We have planned a flow of suggested activities for SIG members aiming at helping you craft your experiment towards publication while making use of several feedback moments:

1 – The Experiments in Entrepreneurship Research network organizes an online workshop every year. The workshop typically takes place in Spring and its aims is to help scholars working on experiments to craft their papers. The workshop accepts papers at a design stage and at a more advanced stage. This means that participants will receive feedback according to what their needs at the time of the workshop. During the workshop, participants can work on their papers, aiming at submission to the RENT conference.

Please note: SIG participants will still need to submit a paper/proposal and register for the workshop (i.e., SIG membership does not mean automatic participation in the workshop).

2 – There will be a submission track (experiments in entrepreneurship research) at the RENT conference, where participants of the SIG can submit their improved work since the workshop. Participants present their preliminary work during the workshop in March and prepare an abstract submission for RENT in May, using the feedback received during the workshop.

Please note: Participation in the workshop will not be a requirement for submission to the track and participation in the workshop is no guarantee for acceptance to RENT. All submissions to the track will undergo the regular blind peer review process.

3 & 4 – Lunch and “speed meetings” on RENT pre-conference day. We would love to have the community get together in person and the RENT conference seems like a perfect opportunity to do so! We plan to have an informal lunch for the SIG members to connect and afterwards organize “speed meetings” among the members for them to talk about their research and potential collaborations. During RENT, if your experiment has been accepted to the Special Track, present your work and receive feedback from a wider audience besides the SIG.

5 – We will organize at least one of the ECSB webinars with a focus on experiments, where we will invite a speaker relevant for the SIG community.

6 – In addition to the abovementioned activities, we also aim to keep focusing on more publication opportunities, keeping the members informed about special issues in relevant journals or creating publication opportunities for the community.

Final note: we plan to organize this flow of activities at least over the coming three years. We will continuously seek feedback from the members and reassess the flow of activities after three years. This way we ensure that SIG evolves and adapts to the needs of its members.

 

Leadership and membership

Chair: Silvia Costa (University of Groningen, The Netherlands)

Dr. Sílvia Costa is an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Department of Innovation Management & Strategy, at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Sílvia’s research interests focus on entrepreneurial cognition, affect and well-being, with emphasis on the use of experimental designs. Her work has been published in leading journals in the field of entrepreneurship. Sílvia is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Small Business Management and currently a Guest Editor in a Special Issue about Experiments in Entrepreneurship Education in the journal Entrepreneurship Educationand Pedagogy. Sílvia has been an ECSB board member since November 2019. (Email: s.m.costa@rug.nl)

Co-chair: Arjan Frederiks (University of Groningen, The Netherlands)

Dr. Arjan J. Frederiks is Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Department of Innovation Management and Strategy at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. His research focuses on entrepreneurial cognition and technology entrepreneurship. He has a preference for using experimental designs and his research has been published in leading journals such as Journal of Business Venturing, and the Journal of Small Business Management. (Email: a.j.frederiks@rug.nl)

Co-chair: Silke Tegtmeier (University of Southern Denmark)

Dr. Silke Tegtmeier is Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Southern Denmark, Department of Technology and Innovation. Her research focus is on the individual in entrepreneurship. She studies, i.a., the role of voice and emotions in venture evaluations using experimental designs. She has published more than 35 articles in peer-refereed journals, such as Small Business Economics, Business Strategy and the Environment or Journal of Small Business Management. Currently, Silke is guest-editing a Special Issue about Experiments in Entrepreneurship Education in the journal Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy. From 2017 to 2019, Dr. Tegtmeier served as President of the ECSB. (Email: tegtmeier@iti.sdu.dk)

The EXPERIMENTS SIG Committee

Sílvia Costa, Silke Tegtmeier & Arjan Frederiks

 

How to become a member of the Experiments in Entrepreneurship Research Special Interest Group (EXPERIMENTS SIG)?

The Experiments in Entrepreneurship Research Special Interest Group (EXPERIMENTS SIG) of the ECSB welcomes both ECSB members and non-members.

Joining the future activities of the SIG requires a valid ECSB membership. If you do not have a valid membership, you have 9 months to register as an ECSB member. This can be done at https://ecsb.org/join-ecsb/. You can also join the ECSB by attending the RENT or 3E conferences or the workshop associated with this SIG.

If you are interested in being a member of the EXPERIMENTS SIG please fill in the online form via the link below: