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Deadline reminder: SEJ Special Issue on Policy for Innovative Entrepreneurship

  • 1.  Deadline reminder: SEJ Special Issue on Policy for Innovative Entrepreneurship

    Posted 05-15-2019 15:54
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    Deadline coming up in two weeks! -- Peter

     

     

    Call for Papers for a Special Issue of Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal

     

    Policy for Innovative Entrepreneurship

     

    Guest Editors: Steven W. Bradley, Phillip H. Kim, Peter G. Klein, Jeff McMullen, and Karl Wennberg

    SEJ Co-Editor: Gary Dushnitsky

     

    Submission deadline: June 1, 2019

     

    This special issue aims to deepen our understanding of public policies to promote innovative entrepreneurship. We hope to collect exemplary empirical research and theoretical developments that showcase novel empirical strategies, theoretical concepts, and new data sources. Because entrepreneurship is a broad and interdisciplinary phenomenon, we are open to perspectives that combine entrepreneurship with views from other fields such as strategy, public economics, business, sociology, etc.

     

    Innovative entrepreneurship may be distinguished from other forms of entrepreneurship by an emphasis on novel products, services, production methods, or business models. Such innovation should increase the likelihood of firm growth, wealth creation, and the addition of value-added jobs which are crucial for economic development (Acs et al., 2016; Audretsch, 2007; Baumol, 2010; Carree & Thurik, 2003; OECD, 2010). Public agencies and institutions seeking to improve economic growth should consider incentives and rewards that encourage innovative entrepreneurship as well as conventional entrepreneurial activities that produce economic and societal benefits, at the local, national, regional, and international levels.

     

    Empirical research has focused mainly on the evaluation of specific interventions for innovative entrepreneurship, finding examples of both effective and ineffective policies (Autio, & Rannikko, 2016; Cantner, & Kösters, 2012; Jourdan & Kivleniece, 2017. However, we lack a more general assessment of policy design for such efforts. Public investments in research, business development, or infrastructure, for example, are typically justified with arguments that the social benefits exceed the private benefits, such that a market economy will not do enough of these things (Bradley & Klein, 2016; Holtz-Eakin, 2000). But the exact theoretical mechanisms, and a precise estimate of the effects and their magnitudes, remain elusive.

     

    Theoretical work has analyzed, among other topics, how entrepreneurial activity creates new groups of organizations (Chung, 2001), new networks of inter-organizational activity (Ahlstrom & Bruton, 2006), and new organizational forms (David et al., 2013). These efforts occur across multiple levels of analysis (Kim et al. 2016). Yet, we don't know exactly how these mechanisms for organizing entrepreneurial activity achieve innovation and growth outcomes. Prior syntheses of such policies adopt an efficiency perspective sprung from market-failure analysis. In other words, they focus on fine-tuning an established system rather than assessing its general effectiveness. Policies are then devised to 'correct' the failure – often by incentivizing firms and other institutions to enhance R&D and promoting entrepreneurial venturing. The time is ripe for research that also looks at the higher-level institutions related to innovation and entrepreneurship.

     

    While innovation is often highlighted as an important policy focus, entrepreneurs are not the only constituents of public sector employees. Established firms with political connections and financial resources also seek to influence policy through trade associations and special interest groups. These firms often lobby for policies and regulations to maintain an economic advantage and limit competition (Niskanen, 1971; Olson, 1971; Tullock, 1998; Downs, 1962). These strategic interests often compete with the billions of dollars spent annually worldwide to support innovation and entrepreneurship. Currently, we lack comprehensive knowledge about the mechanisms associated with these different forces and whether support for innovative entrepreneurship exceeds, meets or underdelivers their intended outcomes. It is possible that well-intentioned public investments and policy efforts have limited gains combined with unintended consequences of crowding out private investment (Baumol, 2002; Acs, Åstebro, Audretsch, & Robinson, 2016). For these reasons we need a better understanding of the costs and benefits of alternative institutions and policies to promote innovative entrepreneur-ship for the industries and regions targets at the macro, industry, firm, and individual levels of analysis (see e.g. AMP special issue, Bradley & Klein, 2016).

     

    Some broad questions that contributions to the special issue might address:

     

    • What do public economics, information economics, and public choice theory say about effectiveness of policy interventions under conditions of uncertainty and divergent incentives? How do network theory, institutional theory, or other approaches drawing on sociology in-form the discussion?
    • How do specific policies or programs channel resources to small scale, experimental and high-growth new ventures (Haltiwanger, Jarmin, Kulick, & Miranda, 2016; Haltiwanger, Jarmin, & Miranda, 2012)?
    • Under what conditions can successful policies outweigh the potential deadweight costs and crowding-out effects on firms not included in policy treatments?
    • What distinguishes successful from less successful policies? Are there limits to specific policy interventions or combination of policies?

     

    For more information, please refer to the attached document or visit https://www.strategicmanagement.net/sej/overview/special-issues/open-calls.

     

    Peter Klein