CALL FOR PAPERS:
International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal
Special Issue on “The Role of Networks in Entrepreneurial Performance”
Closing Date: Saturday, 1st Sept 2012. Papers will be published in 2013.
Papers may be of any type– empirical studies, conceptual papers, reviews,
or research and teaching notes
Special Issue Editors:
Prof. Jai Beom Kim, Sungkyunkwan University (
caifave@gmail.com)
Dr Wilson Ng, University of Roehampton (
Wilson.Ng@roehampton.ac.uk)
Prof. Alison Rieple, University of Westminster (
ali.rieple@gmail.com)
Networks have long been recognized as important for SMEs, whether as
sources of new product development (Lipparini & Sobrero, 1994) or as a
means of accessing customers and distribution channels (Lee, Park, Yoon, &
Park, 2010) for new products and services. Jack, Drakopoulou, Dodd &
Anderson (2008) argue that networks are essential to the entrepreneurial
process in that they ‘provide a framework for processes aiming at
organizing resources according to opportunities’. Yet we still know
little about how entrepreneurial firms discriminate between and use
networks, and which aspects of a chosen network lead to superior (or
alternatively poorer) performance. SMEs and micro-sized firms cannot,
normally, access all the resources they need in-house and because of their
small size they often have to source these externally. These resources
include both physical goods and intangible resources such as knowledge.
There are skills and capabilities involved in both learning about these
resources and obtaining them at an advantage, for example gaining
privileged access to low prices or favourable distribution channels, or to
knowledge that others cannot obtain (Ruzzier, Hisrich, & Antoncic, 2006).
We know that social capital is an important factor in the building and
maintaining of helpful business relationships in some parts of the world
(for example, guanxi in China, Wasta in Arab countries, or the network of
businesses that supply Benetton in Italy or Inditex in Spain) (Li and Liu,
2010). Yet as Anderson & Jack (2002) suggest, “the nature, role and
application of social capital in an entrepreneurial context have not been
extensively explored”. Are these networks a source of growth for firms
within them, or blockages to innovation? How do foreign entrepreneurs
access such networks? Tightly-knit relationships can constrain innovation
by restricting access to new knowledge but at the same time can enable it
through constructing an efficient channel for new ideas to be processed.
An important question is whether there are specific sectors in which the
benefits of strong relationships outweigh any disadvantages; and vice
versa. Furthermore, what are the etiquettes (Anderson & Jack, 2002) of
social capital formation, particularly in global industries?
Successful network participants are likely to have specific attributes
that enable them to form trusting (affective or cognitive) relationships
(see, for example, Tong, 2006). These attributes are likely to differ
around the world. They are also likely to vary according to the motives
for forming a relationship, whether it is a risky relationship in which
the outcomes are uncertain, as in the development of radical new products,
or a joint venture where the alliances are unbalanced in terms of the
bases of power held by the partners, or a relationship where the outcomes
are more predictable (Smith and Lohrke, 2008). We also still know little
about how entrepreneurial partners engage with networks whose participants
have very different characteristics to their own.
There are other rather surprising gaps in knowledge. For example, little
attention has been paid to the network development and networking
activities of female and ethnic entrepreneurs, and even less to whether
they participate in certain sectors, and to what effect, for example in
agri-businesses or technology-based SMEs. Typically female entrepreneurs
have different approaches to network participation compared with males
(Baker, Aldrich, & Nina, 1997). We speculate that the role of females are
likely to be different in different industries, and different geographical
locations, and perhaps also in different roles (Klyver, 2011). This is
important because recent research (for example, Hampton, Coope and
McGowan, 2009) suggests that women are a significant yet untapped source
of entrepreneurial potential. A better understanding of issues surrounding
the activities of female entrepreneurs would also help identify ways in
which others might be encouraged to engage in new venturing. Other
personal attributes likely to be relevant in the forming of network
relationships and which are currently not well understood, include class
(Anderson and Miller, 2003), and educational level (Ibarra, 1993).
From this brief overview of the literature we can identify a number of
potentially fruitful questions for investigation, including (but not
limited to):
• The role of absorptive capacity in SMEs’ ability to access and utilise
externally-held resources
• Global entrepreneurship in the smart digital age
• Networks and family businesses
• Capabilities, competences and tools that might be needed for small firms
to use networks effectively
• The role of social capital in entrepreneurial success
• The process and effect/s of SMEs’ networks in the new product
development process
• The influence of network participation in design outcomes
• Attributes of effective boundary-spanners
• The extent to which government agencies may create effective
entrepreneurial networks
• Collaborative work and the role of networks in co-creation
• Networking as opportunity brokering
Indicative references:
Anderson, A., & Jack, S. (2002). The articulation of social capital in
entrepreneurial networks: A glue or a lubricant? Entrepreneurship &
Regional Development, 14(3), 193-21
Anderson, A., & Miller, C. (2003). Class matters: Human and social capital
in the entrepreneurial process. Journal of Socio-Economics, 32(1), 17-36.
Baker, T., Aldrich, H., & Nina, I. (1997). Invisible entrepreneurs: The
neglect of women business owners by mass media and scholarly journals in
the USA. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 9(3), 221-238.
Bradley S., Wiklund, J., & Shepherd D. (2011). Swinging a double-edged
sword: The effect of slack on entrepreneurial management and growth.
Journal of Business Venturing, 26(5), 537-554
Smith, D., & Lohrke, F. (2008). Entrepreneurial network development:
Trusting in the process, Journal of Business Research, 61(4), 315-322.
Hampton, A., Coope, S., & McGowan, P. (2009). Female entrepreneurial
networks and networking activity in technology-based ventures: An
exploratory study. International Small Business Journal, 27(2), 193-214.
Ibarra, H. (1993). Personal networks of women and minorities in
management: A conceptual framework. The Academy of Management Review, 18
(1), 56-87.
Klyver, K. (2011). Gender differences in entrepreneurial networks: Adding
an alter perspective, Gender in Management: An International Journal, 26
(5), 332-350.
Lee, S-J., Park, G-M., Yoon, B-Y., & Park, J-W. (2010). Open innovation in
SMEs- An intermediated network model. Research Policy, 39(2), 290-300.
Lipparini, A., & Sobrero, M. (1994). The glue and the pieces:
Entrepreneurship and innovation in small-firm networks, Journal of
Business Venturing, 9(2), 125-140.
Jack, S., Drakopoulou, A., Dodd, S., & Anderson, A. (2008). Change and the
development of entrepreneurial networks over time: A processual
perspective. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 20(2), 125-15.
Ruzzier, M., Hisrich, R., & Antoncic, B. (2006). SME internationalization
research: Past, present, and future. Journal of Small Business and
Enterprise Development, 13(4), 476-497.
Tong, C-S. (2006). The opportunity recognition framework of Hong Kong
SMEs. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University,
<http://repository.lib.polyu.edu.hk/jspui/handle/10397/1058>.
Submission and informal enquiries:
Please direct all inquiries to Prof. Alison Rieple.
Please submit full papers as e-mail attachments, in MS Word, at the latest
by 1st September 2012. Papers should normally be between 5000 and 8000
words in length, excluding references and any Appendices and Figures.
Please follow the IEMJ house style set out at:
http://www.springer.com/business+%
26+management/entrepreneurship/journal/11365
NB: Please send papers directly to one of the Special Issue Editors and
not through the Springer online system.
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Ventures HO!