Guest Editors:
Cyrine Ben-Hafaïedh, IESEG School of Management (LEM-CNRS), France
Mirela Xheneti, University of Sussex Business School, UK
Pekka Stenholm, University of Turku, Turku School of Economics, Finland
Robert Blackburn, University of Liverpool Management School, UK
Friederike Welter, Institut für Mittelstandsforschung (IfM) Bonn, Germany
David Urbano, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (CREIS), Spain

Contextualization in entrepreneurship research has received special scholarly attention with studies over the years challenging the mainstream Silicon Valley model of entrepreneurship, and acknowledging and researching both, the diversity of entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial efforts in constructing and enacting contexts (see Welter, 2011; Welter, Baker, Audretsch, & Gartner, 2017; Welter & Gartner, 2016; Zahra, 2007; Zahra & Wright, 2011). After an initial focus on the economic (Nakara, Messeghem, & Ramaroson, 2019) and technological, other facets of context have been examined, including the historical (Wadhwani, Kirsch, Welter, Gartner, & Jones, 2020), spatial (Müller & Korsgaard, 2018), temporal (Lippmann & Aldrich, 2016), cultural (Morales, Holtschlag, Masuda, & Marquina, 2019; Shaw, Wilson, & Pret, 2017), social (Thornton, Ribeiro-Soriano, & Urbano, 2011; Welter & Xheneti, 2015) and institutional (Urbano & Alvarez, 2014; Urbano, Aparicio, & Audretsch, 2019). Emerging as well as more mature areas in entrepreneurship and small business research are examined with a contextualization framework to show the role these areas have in the field (Belitski, Caiazza, & Lehmann, 2019; Wright, Chrisman, Chua, & Steier, 2014; Zahra, Wright, & Abdelgawad, 2014).

In parallel of the rise of contextualization in entrepreneurship research, concerns are also voiced. On the one hand, contextualization in entrepreneurship research brings with it ramifications for research methods and approaches (Zahra et al., 2014). On the other hand, contextualization could lead to an overly fragmented field and its possible disintegration (McMullen, Ingram, & Adams, 2020). Welter, Baker, and Wirsching (2019, p. 327) argue that contextualization would actually allow a better understanding of the bigger picture and call for “the emergence of sensible approaches to contextualization that provide guidance in balancing its benefits and costs”. In this Special Issue, we wish to contribute to tackling this challenge. More specifically, we argue that an investigation of the construction and enactment of contexts provides a path to leverage the identified tension. The aim of this Special Issue ties in with increasing calls in the entrepreneurship literature for going beyond agent centric views towards accounts that theorise the interconnections between agency and structure. For example, Garud, Gehman, and Giuliani (2014) when examining entrepreneurial innovation suggest a movement towards constitutive approaches. Likewise, Baker and Welter (2020) perceive a similar shift in the progress of contextualization in entrepreneurship research and emphasize the importance of “doing contexts”: the making, unmaking, and remaking of sites for entrepreneurial action. Context and entrepreneurship are interconnected pointing out the need to research the temporal and processual aspects of such interplay.

Shifting the focus of contextualization in entrepreneurship and small business research as suggested in this Call has important implications. First, it will provide stronger grounding for entrepreneurship theories and concepts. For example, the entrepreneurial ecosystem is a strongly emergent concept (Stam & van de Ven, 2019; Theodoraki & Catanzaro, 2021) where entrepreneurship is considered to be both enabled and constrained by its context (Acs, Stam, Audretsch, & O’Connor, 2017). Whilst paying close attention to the features of particular locations including their institutional, economical socio-cultural and political characteristics, this approach increasingly recognises the role that various actors in the ecosystem play in developing the ecosystem (Stam & van de Ven, 2019). Audretsch and Belitski (2021) find close support for the role that entrepreneurial ecosystems play in the nature and contributions of entrepreneurship pointing out the close relationship between the regional ecosystem and entrepreneurial agency. Similarly, Stam & Welter (2020) have recently proposed that an ecosystem approach could highlight the geography of entrepreneurship and the role of entrepreneurial agency in place making. Notwithstanding this progress in understanding the interplay of context and entrepreneurship, the ecosystem approach still remains at the macro level when the importance of microdynamics is increasingly recognized in the light of movements such as digitalization (Sussan & Acs, 2017) and transnationalism of entrepreneurship (Drori, Honig, & Wright, 2009) which show how entrepreneurs can (more and more) forge their contexts.

Second, considering the interconnections of context and entrepreneurship will also contribute to set off criticism of hypercontextualisation and help progress in theorizing context in a more sensible way (Welter & Baker, 2020) using methods that are more attuned to capturing the processual nature of entrepreneurship. Overall, understanding how and why some agents are more successful at creating and enacting contexts via entrepreneurial action is crucial (McMullen et al., 2020) and would allow for a more balanced conceptualisation of both entrepreneurial agency and context. 

Questions that might be examined in submissions to this Special Issue include, but are not limited to:

• How do entrepreneurs and/or other stakeholders collectively shape and transform their contexts?
• How does the digitalization of entrepreneurship impact the process of “doing contexts”?
• How does transnational entrepreneurship impact the process of “doing contexts”?
• How do entrepreneurship ecosystems reconfigure context and through what mechanisms does entrepreneurial agency affect the spaces and places of entrepreneurial ecosystems?
• How do exogenous shocks (such as crises, pandemics, etc.) impact the context-entrepreneurship relationship, and contribute in building a “new normal”?
• How does the impact of exogenous shocks differ––or not––from that of more progressive changes (such as climate and societal change)?
• How best can the interplay of contexts and the agency of entrepreneurs (dynamics, processes) be studied (research lenses, levels of analysis, etc.)?

Novel theorizations of context using insights from other disciplines such as sociology or geography, or using different methods are particularly welcome.

Full information available HERE

Book Title: Cases studies in the age of digital entrepreneurship – How digital technologies are transforming the entrepreneurial process in existing business and start-ups

Publisher: Edward Elgar (UK), https://www.e-elgar.com (publication expected by Spring 2022 both in print and online)

Deadline for Submission: Sept 30th, 2021

Editors: Dr. Carmine P. Gibaldi (gibaldic@stjohns.edu) and Dr. Luca Iandoli (iandolil@stjohns.edu)

This book will include a collection of case studies on digital entrepreneurship (DE) aimed at providing students and practitioners with real world examples of how digital technologies are changing the starting, growing, and management process of entrepreneurial ventures.

Read the full call (pdf)

Editors:
Cyrine Ben-Hafaïedh (c.benhafaiedh@ieseg.fr)
Thomas Cooney (thomas.cooney@tudublin.ie)

The background to this Call for Submissions lies in the many reports that have emanated from the European Commission over the past decade which have identified entrepreneurship education as a crucial element of achieving economic growth and jobs. Equally, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills have been identified as the gateways to success in 21st century economies. The use of STEM case studies in entrepreneurship has been highlighted as being critically important in entrepreneurship education as they enable STEM students to identify with relevant role models and challenges. The publication ‘Entrepreneurship in Higher Education, Especially Within Non-Business Studies’ in March 2008 highlighted that the use of case studies was seen as one of the most effective methods of teaching entrepreneurship education to young STEM students. However, there continues to exist a dearth of case studies relating to STEM subjects and an urgent need exists for an international book of such cases.

Third-level educators in the field of entrepreneurship and third-level students across all academic disciplines are the two target groups for this book, while making contemporary, STEM-relevant entrepreneurship case study material available for pedagogical purposes is its primary objective. Existing constraints – availability and accessibility of appropriate case study material, primarily American derived case studies – militate against the widespread and effective use of case studies as a global pedagogical tool for STEM entrepreneurship. Inquiry-based approaches require students to identify and pose solutions for real-world problems. The inquiry process develops a better mastery of STEM course content and strengthens critical thinking skills that can be applied across the curriculum. This Call for Submissions will help to meet the needs of entrepreneurship educators and students by addressing the constraints to STEM case study usage experienced by both groups at present.

It is by undertaking this project that an array of new contemporary STEM case studies will become available for third-level educators and students. For educators, time and resource constraints inevitably mean that many of them are not in a position to develop their own original case study material for instruction purposes. Hence, a more practice-based instruction approach to STEM entrepreneurship suffers as a result, with students not receiving the necessary amount of exposure to real world business problems. By making STEM case studies available to them, entrepreneurship educators will not be constrained by time or resource issues in the use of quality STEM entrepreneurship case study material. For third-level STEM students there is a demand for contemporary case studies that are grounded in a STEM context. In order to best engage students in entrepreneurial thinking and business problem solving it is desirable that the case study material is reflective of the environments in which they live and work.

A 2017 article on the Wall Street Journal highlighted the various problems faced by STEM students when studying entrepreneurship. The article proposed that instead of studying traditional chief executives, STEM entrepreneurship classes should focus on tech start-ups led by chief executives with a STEM background. This project will address this critical issue of STEM case study availability for entrepreneurship educators and students. The Call for Submissions might include case studies relating to any of the following topics:

• Science-related enterprises
• Biotech enterprises
• Technology-related enterprises
• Civil engineering-related enterprises
• Mechanical engineering related enterprises
• Electrical engineering-related enterprises
• Aeronautical engineering-related enterprises
• Mathematics-related enterprises
• Statistics-related enterprises
• Manufacturing
• App development
• University spin-out enterprises
• Research development

The book will consist of a broad variety of cases to ensure a balance relating to gender, nationality, stage of business development, nature of the problem being addressed and type of business. The ambition of the book is to ensure that educators and students of different backgrounds will have access to case studies that will be of relevance to their program.

The following is the outline schedule for the Call and the subsequent publication of the book:

•  June 16th 2021 – Call Opens
• October 31st 2021 – Submission of Case Study and Teaching Note
• November 30th 2021 – Notification of the results of the submission
• January 31st 2022 – Submission of revised Case Study and Teaching Note
• March 31st 2022 – Final decision regarding acceptance of case study for the book

The book will be co-edited by Prof Cyrine Ben-Hafaïedh (c.benhafaiedh@ieseg.fr) and Prof Thomas Cooney (thomas.cooney@tudublin.ie). Please feel free to contact either of them should you have any queries relating to the process.

Call for Submissions – STEM Entrepreneurship (pdf)

Read the full call: https://www.springer.com/journal/11187/updates/19347968

Special issues editors:

Dr. Lasse Torkkeli
Associate Professor, LUT University School of Business and Management and Visiting Fellow in the Department of Business Administration, TalTech
Adjunct Professor of International Business, Turku School of Economics
e-mail: Lasse.Torkkeli@utu.fi

Dr Sharon Loane
Senior Lecturer in International Business
Ulster University
e-mail: sp.loane@ulster.ac.uk

Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on entrepreneurship worldwide (Shepherd, 2020; Zahra, 2020), as the global foreign direct investments . have decreased over 40% in the last year (UNCTAD, 2021). However, even in recessionary periods, economic development is driven by enterprises that seek fast growth (Greene & Rosiello, 2020). Such risk-taking is complemented by the fact that crises also open up opportunities for strategic renewal, where innovating is an important strategic response to crisis (Wenzel et al. 2020). Enterprises that are proactive and well-networked are those that can strategically reposition in response to uncertain events (Maritz et al. 2020). In sum, firms that are able to engage in proactive, innovative and risk-taking behavior – firms that are entrepreneurially oriented (Lumpkin & Dess, 1996) – should be expected to grow and perform better even in such adverse conditions as the ongoing COVID-19 crisis has introduced.

International entrepreneurship is the combination of innovative, proactive, and risk-seeking behaviour that crosses national borders and is intended to create value in organizations (McDougall & Oviatt, 2000). In the post-Covid world, agile and resilient^[1] international new ventures will be able to take advantage of their entrepreneurial orientation and find opportunities in the upheaval that the pandemic has caused globally (Zahra, 2020). In such an environment characterized by high volatility and uncertainty, the importance of the capabilities of firms to integrate resources in recognizing new opportunities is also further heightened (Battisti & Deakins, 2017). The role of such capabilities as well as the role of entrepreneurial resilience (Bullough & Renko, 2013; Bullough et al., 2014) are differentiators between survival and failure of enterprises, and the speed with which international new ventures are able to learn can determine their growth and survival in the long term (Zahra, 2020).

The COVID-19 crisis also presents opportunities to firms for digitalization and business model change (Seetharaman, 2020). Behavior of rapidly internationalizing small enterprises known as born globals (Rennie, 1993; Knight et al., 2004) in particular has been argued to come to depend on their business models (Hennart, 2014), and the role of digitally enabled internationalizing enterprises such as born digitals (Vadana et al., 2019; Monaghan et al., 2020), is expected to grow in importance for international entrepreneurship research and practice during and after the COVID-19 crisis. However, the role of business models and business model innovation (Clauss et al., 2019) in international entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial growth has remained an often-neglected topic of research, as only a few studies (Childs et al., 2017; Asemokha et al., 2019) have shed light on the dynamics of business models and international growth or performance in international entrepreneurship. Thus, there is a need for more clarity in international entrepreneurship research on the role that digitalization, business models and business model change have in international growth and performance of enterprises.

This special issue welcomes contributions in these areas, seeking to shed light on resilient growth and international entrepreneurship during challenging times. The suggested topics of contributions for this special issue include but are not limited to:

• The concept of growth in entrepreneurial internationalization and in international entrepreneurship
• The role of entrepreneurial resilience in business model change and growth in international entrepreneurship
• Resilience of international entrepreneurs during times of crisis
• The role of business models and business model change in growth and performance of international entrepreneurial firms
• The role of capabilities related to growth and business models in international entrepreneurship
• The role of interorganizational partnerships and networks in international business models/growth models
• The influence of digitization and technology in business change and growth in international entrepreneurship.

Submission Deadline:

Articles need to be written in English and submitted via the online system by 30 December 2021

Under the Select Article Type, please choose Special Issue Paper. Once you have uploaded your paper and have reached the section/category page, please select:

Special Issue:

Submitted papers will be double blind peer reviewed and published in a special journal issue of Small Enterprise Research in 2022 or early 2023.

All queries about the special issue should be sent to lead Guest Editors.

See the Full Special Issue Call

[1] Resilience is “an ability to go on with life, or to continue living a purposeful life after hardship or adversity” (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004).

Guest Editors
Sílvia Costa, University of Groningen (member of the ECSB Board)
Susana C. Santos, Rowan University (member of the USASBE Board)
Mark T. Schenkel, Belmont University (Past President of USASBE)
Silke Tegtmeier, University of Southern Denmark (Past President of ECSB)
Ulla Hytti, Turku School of Economics at University of Turku (President Elect of ECSB)

This call is a joint initiative from the two organizations USASBE and ECSB.

For this special issue we welcome studies focusing on, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Studies using experimental designs to test the effects of a course, training program or other specific types of interventions on learning outcomes;
• Studies using quasi-experimental designs to test the effects of a course, training program or other specific types of interventions on specific learning outcomes;
• Studies using a comparison of different stimuli in educational activities and their effects on specific learning outcomes;
• Studies using experiments or quasi experiments to assess the effects of interventions on tangible learning outcomes;
• Studies using experiments or quasi experiments to assess the effects of interventions on subjective learning outcomes;
• Manuscripts focusing on best practices, ethical challenges or practical issues in conducting experiments in entrepreneurship education;
• Manuscripts reviewing the state of the art in experiments as a methodology to test entrepreneurship education interventions;

There will be a series of events tied to this Special Issue with the aim of supporting prospective authors working on their manuscripts towards submission. Participation in the events is optional for authors. During the events, the editorial team will provide feedback and guidance for prospective authors.

Important Dates:

• Early feedback at the “Conducting Experiments in Entrepreneurship Research – Second Paper Development Workshop for Early-Career Scholars”, organized by
  the University of Groningen, NL: March 2021 (optional)
• Meet the 3E community of entrepreneurship education researchers and get their feedback at the 3E Conference, May 2021, Trondheim, Norway (optional)
• Online Paper Development Workshop “Meet the Guest-editors”: September 2021 (optional)
• Feedback from the guest-editors: RENT Conference Nov. 2021, Turku, Finland (optional)
• Feedback from the guest-editors: USASBE Conference, Jan. 2022, U.S. (optional)
• Submission site will open: February 1, 2022
• Manuscripts due by: March 31, 2022
• Notification to authors (1st round): May 31, 2022
• First revised manuscript due by: August 31, 2022
• Notification to authors (2nd round): October 31, 2022
• Final versions due by: December 31, 2022
  

Read the full call for papers here

Guest Editors:

Special Issue Guest Editors:

Alexandros Kakouris, University of Peloponnese

Daniele Morselli, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano

Luke Pittaway, Ohio University

Entrepreneurship has been proven a loamy field for competing learning theories and practices. Following early calls (e.g. Oslo Agenda, 2006) for innovative teaching to ensure impact, educators worldwide have adopted diverse teaching techniques, spanning from traditional business-oriented paradigms (e.g. Fiet, 2001a,b; Honig, 2004) to fully experiential approaches (e.g. Lackéus and Williams Middleton, 2015; Mason and Arshed, 2013; Pittaway and Cope, 2007a; Rasmussen and Sørheim, 2006), gaming (e.g. Fellnhofer, 2018; Mayer et al., 2014) and reflective methods (e.g. Kakouris, 2021; Wraae, Tigerstedt and Walmsley, 2020). These instructional cases are either based on known learning theories or they are self-devised. Overall, entrepreneurship education appears to have impact on participants (Nabi et al., 2017; Pittaway and Cope, 2007b) despite questions of legitimacy in academic domains (Fayolle and Gailly, 2008; Johannisson, 2016; Kuratko, 2005). Due to the post-millennial rearticulation of entrepreneurship (Shane and Venkatamaran, 2000), the emergent individual-opportunity nexus for entrepreneurship (Shane and Eckhardt, 2003) encourages educators to pursue active learning approaches designed to maximize self-directed learning (e.g. Hägg and Kurczewska, 2019; Jones, Penaluna and Penaluna, 2019; Neck and Corbett, 2018). Everyday entrepreneurial teaching balances different forms, such as, about/for/though (or embedded) forms of entrepreneurship education (Kakouris and Liargovas, 2020; Lackéus, 2015), while lacking a standalone and complete knowledge base (i.e. a coherent theory) especially at the individual level of analysis (Bygrave and Hofer, 1992). Entrepreneurship education, therefore, may adopt interwoven contingent knowledge (Fiet, 2001a) to theoretically develop the curriculum and pedagogy (Fiet, 2001b). This theoretical ‘incompleteness’ discriminates entrepreneurship from other academic disciplines making it receptive to educational innovations and, as mentioned, a loamy field for competing learning practices.

However, and independently of the evolution and maturation of entrepreneurship as a field of study, educationalists advocate learning theories. Similar to other lifelong learning subjects, entrepreneurial instruction purports to holistic learning. In his book entitled ‘How we learn’, Illeris (2007) recognizes three dimensions important for learning in a synthetic framework, namely the content, the incentives for learning, and the environment within which learning occurs (e.g. Apostolopoulos et al., 2018). In this nexus, Illeris classifies most of the learning theories focusing on one or more dimensions (p. 257). Within entrepreneurship education, the present call asks what could be gained if a variety of learning theories is coherently pursued in entrepreneurial pedagogy. Scholars in the field have maintained that entrepreneurship can be a pedagogy itself (Kyrö, 2015) or a ‘peculiar’ field of study that needs a tailor-made (entrepreneurship-specific) instructional approach (e.g. Hägg and Kurczewska, 2019; Lackéus, 2020; Neck, Greene and Brush, 2014) devised from scratch. Others suggest pursuing specific learning theories as beneficial for the adoption and evaluation of entrepreneurship education across all educational levels (Kakouris and Morselli, 2020). Certainly, entrepreneurship education undergoes a transitional phase where pedagogy is scrutinized (Hägg and Gabrielsson, 2019) and thus, omni-directional arguments are raised to attain a ‘shift’ in our understanding about how to teach entrepreneurship, to make progress. The present call for papers seeks for theoretical or empirical research along with systematic literature reviews that address specific learning theories pursued in entrepreneurial teaching at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels, including within vocational and business education. Lifelong learning may also be examined as it relates to relevant learning theories applied. Behavioral, cognitive, constructivist or humanist approaches are welcome, along with any learning theory depicted in the Illerian interpretation. Research on in person and online teaching are welcomed, the latter especially considering the COVID-19 pandemic (Liguori and Winkler, 2020). Articles should address the learning theory or theories that are applied and should explain the reasons for adoption in entrepreneurship education. Beyond the widespread pragmatist perspective of learning-by-doing, the call welcomes social constructivism, problem-based and situated learning, transformative learning, communities of practice and social learning, as indicative, but not exhaustive, examples of relevant learning theory. Organizational learning theories are also welcomed. Through collaborations between education and entrepreneurship scholars, the special issue seeks to fill a gap in entrepreneurship education literature concerning the adoption of learning theories in (theory-driven) entrepreneurial teaching.

Indicative, Non-exhaustive Topics and Research Questions

• Learning theories in teaching and learning entrepreneurship
  • Pragmatist approaches
  • The role of experience in entrepreneurial teaching
  • Sociocultural approaches
  • Entrepreneurial teaching targeting reflection or critical reflection
• Specific pedagogies for entrepreneurship
  • The role of incentives and sentiments in teaching entrepreneurship
  • Problem-based learning for entrepreneurship education
  • Instrumental versus communicative entrepreneurial teaching and learning
  • Technology enriched and pedagogically sound teaching in entrepreneurship
  • Gaming in entrepreneurial teaching

Read the full call HERE