Call for Submissions

Research Handbook on Socio-Tech Entrepreneurship: Navigating the Nexus Between Social Entrepreneurship and Technology

Edward Elgar Publishing

Editors: Dr. Joanne Scillitoe, Dr. Latha Poonamallee, Dr. Simy Joy, Dr. Ana Cristina Siqueira and Dr. Sarah Kimakwa

The intersection of social challenges and technological advancements presents a fertile ground for a new wave of innovative entrepreneurship increasingly referred to as Socio-Tech Entrepreneurship. Socio-Tech Entrepreneurship offers the promise of a transformative entrepreneurial landscape that will result in growth oriented and profitable ventures, scalable societal impact, greater equity, and inclusive prosperity. This handbook aims to explore the burgeoning field of Socio-Tech Entrepreneurship, emphasizing how entrepreneurs and ventures leverage core, value-added technologies to address societal needs while also navigating the complexities and, at times, conflicting approaches towards economic and social impact. In addition, this handbook will explore the changing dynamics of entrepreneurial ecosystems that support Socio-Tech Entrepreneurship.

In this handbook, we add to this field by focusing on socio-tech innovation and entrepreneurship (Scillitoe, Poonamallee & Joy, 2016, 2018). Research on socio-tech ventures is a particularly important research topic given an increasing number of technology ventures founded today globally have a social orientation and span both the for-profit and nonprofit worlds. The structure of these organizations can range from for-profit, non-profit, hybrid, co-ops, public to social movement organizations as long as they are both explicitly social and explicitly technological. We call these ventures socio-tech ventures. For example, organizations may develop or employ technologies such as in the field of decentralized finance for promoting entrepreneurship and socioeconomic development in underserved communities (Siqueira, Honig, Mariano, & Moraes, 2020). Additional examples include entrepreneurially ingenious ventures in fields such as renewable energy and recyclable supply chain equipment focused on sustainable solutions (Siqueira & Honig, 2019). Our proposed linkage of social entrepreneurship with technology entrepreneurship offers to provide new insights to create scalable and economically impactful ventures that generate social value. However, early research suggests that a direct translation of technology entrepreneurship nor social entrepreneurship knowledge and models to socio-tech ventures is not clear cut and suggests new knowledge is needed in this new and valuable area of research (Scillitoe, Poonamallee & Joy, 2016; Scillitoe, Poonamallee & Joy, 2018).

We invite abstracts and ideas that explore this topic and current debates using theoretical and empirical approaches from various disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives. Theories can span but not be limited to social entrepreneurship, technology and innovation management, technology entrepreneurship, organizational behavior, organizational theory, economics, institutional theory, and strategic management. Moreover, we encourage authors to incorporate inclusive theoretical perspectives originating in underrepresented nations or communities (Siqueira, Honig, Cunha, Mariano, & Moraes, 2023) and developed by authors from diverse backgrounds. We welcome submissions detailing quantitative, qualitative or mixed method research approaches of any ontological and epistemological underpinnings. Key themes will include entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystems, social entrepreneurship, technological innovation management, technology entrepreneurship, technology and social justice, core technologies vs facilitative technologies, circular economies, indigenous technologies, and impact measurement. We also welcome a limited number of case-studies and interviews with socio-tech ventures that provide practical insights and teaching tools as well as pedagogical approaches provided they are grounded in rigorous