Message from the Historian Committee Chair (July 2022)
If you are interested in the history of entrepreneurship and are looking for a way to serve the Entrepreneurship Division, I encourage you to volunteer for the Historian Committee. The Committee’s mission is “to develop and contribute institutional memory to the workings of the Division,” and we have worked this year on myriad ways to fulfill this mission.
Some recent initiatives include the following:
1. Hosting a PDW for the 2022 Annual Meeting in Seattle. The Committee has historically hosted PDWs on the development of specific entrepreneurship topics and research methods for investigating historical events, as well as highlighted key anniversaries and continued influence of foundational texts and articles. This year, the Committee’s PDW will focus on the historical and continuing impact of Venkataraman’s (1997) chapter, “The distinctive domain of entrepreneurship research,” which provided an important step in clarifying the field’s domain early in its history.
The PDW, entitled "25 years of research based on Venkataraman (1997): Assessing progress and exploring future avenues," will take place on Saturday, August 6, 2022 from 9:00 to 10:30 AM (Pacific Time, UTC-7). We will be conducting it as a hybrid interactive session, so feel free to join us either in-person or virtually.
2. Updating the History of the Entrepreneurship Division written by Hans Landström and Jon Lindhe (see https://bit.ly/ENTDivisionHistory). Published in 2015, their publication continues to serve as a great source of organizational memory about major divisional events as well as a repository listing of interesting information, such as past Division Chairs and winners of the Division’s many prestigious awards.
We are currently updating listings and adding information about some major events (like the Division’s 30th anniversary celebration in 2016). If you have any suggestions about key events in the life of the Division (or content like pictures from these events) from the past seven years, please feel free to submit them to me.
3. Digitally preserving institutional memory. Working with the Division’s Communication Committee, the Historian Committee has supported the ENT Division’s long-standing presence across multiple social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.
So, for example, if you want to see who received awards at last year’s Business Meeting, you can view it in its entirety at https://bit.ly/ENTBizMeeting2021. If you want to know who served as officers in 2020 (as well as about the officer nomination process, in general), see https://bit.ly/ENTOfficerNom2020 .
If you are interested in working with the Historian Committee, please contact me at FranzLohrke@auburn.edu.
Best regards,
Franz Lohrke
Historian Committee Chair
Message from the Historian Committee Chair (July 2021)
If you would like to serve the ENT Division and are interested in the history of entrepreneurship, then I encourage you to volunteer for the Historian Committee. We will work on at least two important projects over the next year, and we would enjoy your contributions to these efforts.
First, the Committee often sponsors history-focused PDWs for the Annual Meeting, and we will begin working on a PDW for the 2022 Seattle meeting during this year’s virtual conference. PDW topics have regularly focused on the historical development of specific entrepreneurship topics and research methods for investigating historical events, as well as highlighted key anniversaries and continued influence of foundational texts and articles. If you’re interested in working on this type of PDW for AOM 2022, then please consider joining the Historian Committee.
Second, five years have passed since Hans Landström and Jon Lindhe wrote the History of the Entrepreneurship Division (see https://bit.ly/ENTDivisionHistory). Both the field and the Division have continued to develop, and the Committee will work on version 2.0 this year as part of the Division’s 35th anniversary. The History serves as a great source of organizational memory for major events, as well as a repository listing of interesting information, such as past Division Chairs and winners of the Division’s many prestigious awards, including the Heizer and NFIB Dissertation awards.
Additionally, we will continue to work closely with the Division’s Communications Committee to preserve the Division’s history in a digital format. If you’re interested in podcasting, social media posting, digitizing/upgrading older pictures, or other historical digitalization activities, then there is room for you on the Historian Committee.
If you’d like to be involved in any of these different activities, please contact me at FranzLohrke@auburn.edu.
Thanks so much,
Franz Lohrke
Historian Committee Chair
Message from the Historian Committee: How to Get Involved (July 2020)
If you would like to serve the ENT Division and are interested in the history of entrepreneurship, I encourage you to join the Historian Committee. Thanks to the hard work of previous Committee chairs and members, we have a tremendous cache of materials that preserves our members’ many accomplishments since our Division was founded as an interest group in 1974. The Committee is tasked with continuing this work, updating existing and creating new content. There are three ways you can become involved.
First, if you haven’t already, I invite you to read the “History of the Entrepreneurship Division” (https://bit.ly/ENTDivisionHistory), which Hans Landström and Jon Lindhe wrote and shared with members at the 2016 Academy of Management (AOM) Annual Meeting. The manuscript details how the Division grew from humble beginnings to become the fourth largest and one of the most internationally diverse AOM divisions. The Committee is tasked with updating this comprehensive chronicle, about every five years. Thus, it’s about time to begin working on version 2.0.
Second, the Committee has repeatedly sponsored history-focused PDWs for the AOM Annual Meeting. If you’re interested in working on this type of PDW for AOM 2021 or other future meetings, you should consider joining the Committee.
Third, as I’ve noted previously, much of the Division’s history is recorded on paper, and, while we will continue to do this, the Committee has also started employing digital formats. For example, Committee members frequently take pictures of activities during AOM Annual and MidWinter Officer Meetings, which become part of the Division’s digital history on our Facebook (@ENTDivision), Instagram (entdivaom), and Twitter (@ENT_Div_AoM) sites. The Committee has also begun producing a podcast, This Month in Entrepreneurship (TMI Entrepreneurship), the first of which details how to nominate someone (or yourself) for a Division officer position during open nominations in February each year (https://bit.ly/ENTOfficerNom2020). We plan to produce more podcasts like this, as well as podcasts that record other developments in the field and Division. If you have interests/skills in producing this type of content, we could use your abilities on the Committee.
As you can see, the Historian Committee has a lot of work to do. Please contact me at FranzLohrke@auburn.edu, if you’d like to be involved in any of these different activities.
Thanks so much,
Franz Lohrke,
Historian Committee Chair
Message from the Chair (July 2019)
Michael Chrichton, author of Jurassic Park, is credited with saying, “If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree.” As academics, it is thus critical that we remain informed about our discipline’s history to stay connected to the field and, in turn, build upon the knowledge that others have discovered.
Maintaining our collective knowledge about both the entrepreneurship discipline, in general, and the Entrepreneurship Division, in particular, is the History Committee’s primary goal. Accordingly, the Division provides several history-focused resources for members.
For example, on the Division website’s History of Entrepreneurship page, members can view profiles of the Division’s pioneers and download The History of the Entrepreneurship Division, written by Hans Landström and Jon Lindhe. This publication details the Division’s founding and growth and lists past Division Chairs and award winners through 2015. (An updated list of award winners is available at https://ent.aom.org/awards.)
The Division supplies other useful online resources, including the following:
- History of the Research Field: Details the early history of entrepreneurship research, provides bibliometric analyses and methodological reviews of the field, and includes a special section on Schumpeter’s contributions to entrepreneurship.
Additionally, the Division has several social media sites – Facebook (@ENTDivision), Instagram (entdivaom), and Twitter (@ENT_Div_AoM) – that provide important information (e.g., Calls for Nominations) and help catalog our history. Please feel free to contribute content to these sites by uploading your pictures and videos from Division events and/or sharing news about developments in the field. Beyond recording our history, these sites allow the Division to disseminate information quickly to its members around the world. For example, about 81 percent of the Division’s Facebook followers reside outside the U.S.
Finally, stay tuned for a Division podcast that will debut after this year’s Academy of Management meeting in Boston. “This Month in Entrepreneurship” (i.e., “TMI Entrepreneurship”) will include current events and history-focused segments, which will help us record our Division and discipline’s histories as they unfold.
If you are interested in helping produce the podcast, joining the History Committee, and/or assisting with any of the Committee’s initiatives, please contact me at FranzLohrke@lsu.edu.
Thanks so much,
Franz Lohrke
Entrepreneurship Division Historian and Archivist
Message from the Chair (March 2018)
As I rotate on as Chair of the Historian Committee this year, I wanted to first thank Hans Landström for the wonderful job that he did as Chair in the past several years. The Committee’s many accomplishments under his leadership include compiling a comprehensive History of the Entrepreneurship Division, which Hans shared with members at the 2016 meeting, and he and Committee members delivered some historically focused PDWs at several Annual Meetings.
In addition, many of the resources he and Barbara Bird assembled are now available on the Division’s website. Check them out on AoM Connect under the “Committees” and then “History of Entrepreneurship” tabs. Resources include important readings related to the evolution of the entrepreneurship field, bibliometric literature reviews, and video interviews with some of the field’s pioneers.
Going forward, we would like to continue submitting history-focused PDWs for the Annual Meeting as well as accumulating the history of both the field and the Division. In terms of the latter, much of our history is recorded on paper, and, while we will continue to do this (such as periodically updating the History of the Entrepreneurship Division), we also plan to start recording our history digitally.
So, for example, Division members’ pictures of sessions and other events during the Annual Meeting will become part of our digital history on our Facebook (@ENTDivision), Instagram (entdivaom), and Twitter (@ENT_Div_AoM). In addition, we are discussing the possibility of a history-focused podcast, which would have a current events section, focusing on how recent publications fit into the historical development of the field, and a historical section, focusing on the continuing influence of foundational works in the field. Both activities will help us record our history as it happens.
Please contact me at FranzLohrke@lsu.edu , if you are interested in joining the Committee to become involved in any of these proposed ideas.
Thanks so much,
Franz Lohrke
Historian Committee Chair