Colleagues,
About two years ago, a group of researchers began a project trying to
understand the specificity of entreprising while in absolute poverty.
We were intrigued by the finding that no matter what theory and many of
our papers say about entrepreneurship as a mechanism to lift oneself out
of poverty, the overwhelming majority of poor people do not engage in
entrepreneurship, nor they see it as as an alternative for themselves
even when we expand the notion of entrepreneurship to non-commercial
activities and in some cases, to pretty much anything as is the case
with the standard definition of "necessity entrepreneurship". When we
feel like poking fun at theory, we say that entrepreneurship is a
beautiful theory ruined by empirics, but we are aware, and recognize,
the power of entrepreneurship to transform things. However, we would
like to see more of it and are puzzled by why poor people do not do it
more often in spite of romantic anecdotes we often cite.
Using an institutional lens and field visits, shadowing, and interviews
with very poor people, with entrepreneurs who have emerged from poverty,
and with people and groups in charge of helping them in three countries
in two continents, we began to understand what the limits of our current
theories are. In short, we think that a significant part of what we
believe to be true and what we teach in our classrooms applies to a
fraction of the world´s population.
In short, we believe that Entrepreneurship theory has boundary
conditions and it would be very useful for theory (and for the world,
but that is another matter) if we actually explored what happens outside
these boundaries. We are aware that some of you have done just that and
that prior research exists, we are just saying that theory would be more
robust if we were to study more entrepreneurship under "severe resource
constraints." Of course, we cite your work when appropriate. We have a
paper or two out there, but the objective of this message is not to
promote our research findings.
Rather, this is an invitation to join us in putting together a panel for
AOM on Entrepreneurship of Poverty and, perhaps, on the Poverty of
Entrepreneurship to resuscitate an old philosophical theoretical rift
between two XIXth century European writers. If you are working on
Entrepreneurship of Porverty largely defined and you are attending the
AOM, please drop me a line in private and we will take it from there.
AOM symposia are wonderful places to meet among colleagues interested in
similar things, so if you are interested in the topic but do not have a
paper please double check the AOM catalog and if we are there, we will
be happy to have you join the conversation.
Please email me privately to engage in this project, or the whole ENTREP
list if you feel your message will be beneficial to all.
Cheers,
Pablo MARTIN DE HOLAN Ph.D.
**************************************
This message is from ENTREP which is sponsored by the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management.
To post messages to the ENTREP Listserv, please email your message to
ENTREP@AOMLISTS.AOM.ORG.
Please do not post messages with attached files. Commercial messages or spammed messages are not allowed on the list. The use of auto-responder "out-of-office" messages may also lead to your removal from the list.
You can manage your subscription options, including joining or leaving the list here:
http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=entrep&A=1
If you have questions or need help, please contact Jeff Pollack (
jeff_pollack@ncsu.edu) or Kevin Cox (
kcox24@my.fau.edu).
Ventures HO!