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Dear colleagues,

I would like to bring to your attention the following PDW session. Please note that pre-registration is required, as space is limited. The registration deadlines is July 30th. 

Program Session #: 284 | Submission: 13641 | Sponsor(s): (ENT)
Scheduled: Saturday, Aug 2 2014 10:15AM - 12:15PM at Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown Hotel in Salon 10

Andrew H. Van de Ven; U. of Minnesota
Saras D. Sarasvathy; U. of Virginia
William B. Gartner; California Lutheran U. / Copenhagen Business School
Dimo Dimov; U. of Bath

Explanation of entrepreneurship requires resolution of a tension between prospective opaqueness and retrospective clarity, whereby the actuality of what happens is but a subset of a seemingly unbounded set of what is possible. Even though entrepreneurship is invariably described as a process, there are several roadblocks – a consequence of resolving the above tension in the form of containment with clear beginning and end – that have prevented the full flourishing of this concept and its explanatory potential in the entrepreneurship literature. First, process is generally conceptualized as entity, as a set of activities between fixed end points. Second, the end points (outcomes) are taken as givens (i.e. necessities) rather than contingencies. Third, the set of activities are ascribed logic of practice based on detached observation rather than engaged experience. Fourth, the relationship between the ends points (beginning and end) is seen as linear and time-reversible. This PDW aims to streamline conversations about studying entrepreneurship as a process and to develop a new conception of rigor. Each of four presenters will speak to the above roadblocks, outlining implications for scholarship. The final discussion will aim to bring these ideas together into a new logic of inquiry.

Pre-registration is required for this workshop. To register online, please visit https://secure.aom.org/PDWReg. The deadline to register is July 30, 2014.

Best wishes,

Dimo