ABOUT THE CONFERENCE
The 8th version of this Conference and Symposium aims to advance our understanding of entrepreneurship-as-practice, foster network ties, facilitate collaborative writing relationships, and build a strong community of practice scholars.
The 8th version of this Conference and Symposium will take place in-person only Leuphana University, Luneburg, Germany.
The organizers have developed a Research Conference that includes keynote lectures, panel sessions, paper pitches and a working paper development session. Furthermore, we have developed a Symposium for scholars and PhDs new to practice theories. The Symposium aims at educating interested scholars as well as helps to develop empirical and conceptual papers regarding the 'practice turn' taking place in entrepreneurship studies. Building on the first (February 2016 at VU Amsterdam), second (February 2017 at University College Dublin Quinn School of Business), third (April 2018 at Linnaeus University), fourth (April2019 at Nantes Business School), fifth and sixth (virtual events), and seventh (April 2022 at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) Entrepreneurship-as-Practice (EaP) conferences, this conference and symposium will be held at Leuphana University.
INTRODUCTION
The practice tradition (also known as practice-based studies, the practice approach or the practice lens) forefronts the notion that practices and their connections are fundamental to all social phenomena (Rouse, 2006; T. Schatzki, Knorr-Cetina, & Savigny, 2001). For entrepreneurship it means that people "perform" ventures, startups and firms on an everyday basis through materially accomplished and ordered practices (Chalmers & Shaw, 2017; Hill,2018; Johannisson, 2011; Vincent & Pagan, 2019). This is to say that descriptions and explanations of entrepreneurship-such as, recognizing, evaluating and exploiting opportunities-are incomplete without the 'alternate' description and explanation of how entrepreneurial life is actually lived in and through practices (Gross, Carson, & Jones, 2014; Keating, Geiger, & Mcloughlin, 2013). The term 'practice', therefore, does not refer to an 'empty' conceptual category of 'what entrepreneurs think and do' (Sklaveniti & Steyaert, 2019), but encompasses the meaning-making, identity-forming and order-producing interactions (Chia &Holt, 2006; Nicolini, 2009) enacted by multiple entrepreneurial practitioners and situated in specific (historical) conditions. Therefore, practice theories orient entrepreneurship scholars to take seriously the practices of entrepreneuring as they unfold and are experienced in real-time rather than as they are remembered, or interpreted. Simply put, practice scholars are concerned with the 'nitty-gritty' work of entrepreneuring-all the meetings, the talking, the selling, the form-filling and the number-crunching by which opportunities actually get enacted (Matthews, Chalmers, & Fraser, 2018; Whittington, 1996).
For background and information on EaP literature, prior conferences, media and other pertinent materials, please go to: https://www.entrepreneurshipaspractice.com.
PROGRAMME
Wednesday March 29th – Research Conference Day 1:
New Scholars & Bridging Perspectives
09:00 – 09:30 Walk-in for coffee & tea
09:30 – 11:00 Welcome & introductions to Entrepreneurship-as-Practice research
11:00 – 11:30 Coffee break
11:30 – 13:00 Method roundtables:
I. Conversation Analysis, Ellen Nathues
II. Video Methods, Neil Thompson and Orla Byrne
III. Diffractive Methodologies, Ari Kuismin
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 15:30 Bridging Perspectives to Study Entrepreneurship: Practice Theory and the Communicative Constitution of Organization
a moderated conversation between Silvia Gherardi and François Cooren
15:30 – 16:00 Coffee break
16:00 – 17:00 Publishing strategies for Entrepreneurship-as-Practice research
17:00 – 17:30 Closing remarks and outlook onto the next two days
19:00 Conference dinner
Thursday March 30th – Research Conference Day 2: Transdisciplinarity and Impact Through Practice-Based Approaches
09:00 – 09:30 Walk-in for coffee & tea
09:30 – 10:00 Welcome and introductions
10:00 – 11:00 Keynote lecture by Garima Sharma,
followed by discussion, questions and answers
11:00 – 11:30 Break
11:30 – 12:30 Strategies for Impactful Entrepreneurship As Practice Research with Matthias Wenzel and Hannah Trittin- Ulbrich
12:30 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 14:45 Presentation Leuphana Entrepreneurship Hub
14:45 – 15:15 Transit to city centre
15:30 – 16:30 Guided visit to Lüneburg's Utopia Coworking Space
16:30 – 17:00 Overview of the day and schedule for Day 3
Friday March 31st – Research Conference Day 3: PDWs and Pitches
09:00 – 09:30 Walk-in for coffee & tea
09:30 – 10:00 Welcome
10:00 – 11:00 PDWs
11:00 – 11:30 Break
11:30 – 13:00 PDWs
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 15:30 Paper pitches
15:30 – 16:00 Coffee break
16:00 Closing remarks & goodbye
OBJECTIVES OF THE CONFERENCE AND SYMPOSIUM
March 29th - New Scholar and PhD Symposium (morning session)
The Symposium brings together aspiring and experienced practice researchers. In this morning session, scholars new to practice theories and early career PhD students will be able to learn about how to conduct practice-based studies, ask questions about EaP, and meet and discuss ideas for research with experts in the field. To register for the Symposium, please see the registration link below. There is an option to attend the Symposium without a paper, to simply benefit from the keynotes, exchanges, and panels. The Symposium begins the morning of the 29th, and concludes at lunch time.
March 29th – 30th Research Conference
The Research Conference will being with a moderate conversation between Silvia Gherardi and François Cooren on Bridging Perspectives to Study Entrepreneurship: Practice Theory and the Communicative Constitution of Organization. The conference will start on the afternoon of the 29th. Moreover, participants do not need to submit an abstract/paper to participate in the research conference. There is an option to attend the Conference without a paper, to simply benefit from the keynotes, exchanges, and panels.
March 31st (morning session) Paper Development Workshop
The Paper Development Workshop is designed to maximize useful feedback on developing papers. All those who are wishing to join the paper development workshop are asked to submit an abstract (of approximately 1,000 words) by January 31, 2023 to eap8.leuphana@gmail.com. We leave it up to authors whether they want to develop these abstracts into full papers for the PDWs, or whether they would like to stick with the abstract and pitch the abstract as a research idea. All work in progress will be presented and discussed on the Friday of the conference. We welcome manuscripts that are employing theories of practice to understand a wide array of entrepreneurship phenomena and/or exploring various entrepreneurial practices. Abstracts should present the purpose of the research, the relevance of the problem, the literature review, the methods and the main findings. Authors will be notified of acceptance or otherwise by February 14, 2023. Full working papers for the paper development workshop are due March 14, 2023. Manuscript should be 10-15 pages, Times New Roman 12, single spacing. Abstracts and papers should be written and presented in English. All working papers will be assigned to discussion groups. Each group member will be responsible for providing feedback on the papers received during the working paper session.
NOTE: There is an option to attend the conference without a paper, to simply benefit from the keynotes, exchanges, and panels.
Potential, although not exclusive, topics that may be addressed include:
Empirical Challenges:
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How do entrepreneurs navigate uncertainty in practice?
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How do entrepreneurial heuristics become embedded in everyday action?
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How do entrepreneuring practices differ across contexts? Why?
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What practices are currently overlooked in entrepreneurship research? How are they important?
Theoretical Challenges:
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How can we theoretically cope with the enormous diversity of practices in which entrepreneurship is implicated?
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How can entrepreneurship studies help to theorize the reproduction and transformation of practical knowledge?
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How can we incorporate embodiment and sociomateriality into our understanding of practices related to entrepreneurship?
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How can an EaP perspective rejuvenate our thinking about traditional entrepreneurship related topics of innovating, creating opportunities, networking, venturing, strategizing, financing and organizing?
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What is the value of existing theoretical frameworks of practice for entrepreneurship research, and when should we employ or go beyond them?
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(How) are EaP contributions critical?
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How can practice traditions of entrepreneurship address shortcomings of other philosophical streams, such as individualism and structuralism?
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How is the process approach to entrepreneurship (entrepreneuring) similar to and different from the practice approach?
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How are entrepreneurial behaviour theories (discovery, creation, effectuation, bricolage) similar and different from practice-based theories?
Methodological:
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How does one begin an EaP study, such as selecting and entering a site for observation?
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How can we observe, analyse and theorize about these unique instances, whilst still accounting for their relations to other practices?
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What are some common research questions that can be formulated and answered using an EaP perspective, and which practice theory is appropriate for which research questions in entrepreneurship?
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How can one catalogue and rigorously analyse large amounts of video-based ethnographic data?
FURTHER INFORMATION
Important Dates:
January 31st, 2023 Abstract Submission Deadline (Pitch and PDW)
February 14, 2023 Notification of Acceptance (Pitch and PDW)
March 14, 2022 Full Paper Submission Deadline (PDW)
March 20, 2022 Registration Deadline (All participants)
March 29 - 31 2023 Symposium andConference Dates
Conference Fees:
Fees for Symposium and Research Conference attendees will be announced shortly.
Registration:
This will be available shortly.
Questions:
boukje.cnossen@leuphana.de