Dear colleagues,
Whereas our journals comprise a great platform for the scholarly conversations (testing theories, making contributions available, and disseminating our research), our field is largely lacking venues to discuss the hows, whys, whens, and wheres of our scholarship. Some of this is done in the peer review process and at conferences as papers (and the authors' choices therein) are scrutinized, but where do we discuss issues that are relevant to the organization, processes and procedures, techniques and policies, methodologies and data sources, etc?
For example, where can we have open discussions on which methodologies are more/less suited for what research, the role(s) of theories/theorizing, how to elevate the status of qualitative research or a priori theorizing, the strengths (weaknesses) of existing datasources and what types of data we should (or would want to) get access to, etc. We do not have a platform for discussions of a more practical or pragmatic nature - more "meta," if you will.
I've come to the conclusion that the journals are the wrong forum for this and that the large conferences are also not appropriate as they focus on dissemination (and scrutinization) of already conducted research. We can and do organize workshops and mini-conferences on specific topics, which is great, but their impact is limited to the (few) participants and do not produce broader, discipline-wide discussion. So how can we discuss how the "sausage" is made and engage in discussions on "product development" of our sausage?
Naturally, if you want something done, you need to do it yourself. So rather than screaming into the void, I've set up a blog-like website on Substack where I invite you all to contribute to discussing issues related to our discipline that you feel strongly about, have ideas for how to improve, or just bring problems and/or solutions to everybody's attention. I call it "Entrepreneurship Scholars' Exchange" (or ENTREX for short) because it needs a name; you'll find it at
https://entrex.substack.com .
Next week will feature a piece by Dave Townsend on how "boring" entrepreneurship research is. And there is more to follow. Please check it out and contribute. You may send your commentary to me at my official e-mail address or
entrex@substack.com. The site is entirely free, makes no and asks for no money, and it has no scholarly, political, or other affiliations. I'll publish any comments as long as it's interesting, productive, and well written. (So please contribute!)
Thanks for listening - and for helping make our discipline even greater!
Per Bylund
|  | PER L BYLUND | Associate Professor Johnny D. Pope Chair School of Entrepreneurship 424 Business Building | Stillwater, OK 74078 405-744-4301 | per.bylund@okstate.edu business.okstate.edu |
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