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How do entrepreneurs create opportunities when the rules of the game are still evolving?

This roundtable explores how ventures in the New Space Economy navigate and sometimes attempt to reshape the institutional and regulatory forces that define this frontier field.

Although the sector is rich in technological opportunity, entrepreneurial action is deeply intertwined with national space agencies, defense actors, international treaties, licensing regimes, and public–private governance structures. These institutional arrangements shape how ventures recognize opportunities, build legitimacy, secure financing, access technologies and data, and participate in emerging value chains.

The discussion will focus on the institutional–entrepreneurial interface: how entrepreneurs adapt to existing constraints, how they strategically engage with regulators and partners, and how ventures and institutions co-construct the field as markets take shape.

👥 Facilitators
• Xaver Neumeyer - University of New Mexico
• Raj Mahto - University of New Mexico
• Donald Kuratko - Indiana University
• Jeffery S. McMullen - Imperial College Business School

🏛️ Discussion questions
• How do entrepreneurs navigate institutional voids in areas such as launch licensing, debris regulation, and satellite spectrum allocation?
• Under what conditions can space ventures influence institutional rules through partnerships, lobbying, or standard-setting?
• How should theory account for the co-evolution of institutions and entrepreneurial activity in frontier technological domains?
• How do legitimacy, financing, regulation, and access to critical technologies shape opportunity formation in New Space?
• What can space entrepreneurship teach us about institutions, market creation, and entrepreneurial action under constraint?

Join us for a focused discussion on how the Space Economy can help management scholars rethink opportunity formation, institutional constraint, legitimacy building, and entrepreneurship in frontier industries.

🗓️ August 1, 2026 | 2:00–5:30 PM
📍 Loews Hotel, Philadelphia, USA
🔗 Register: https://lnkd.in/e3czZT4R
📩 Questions: Mehdi.montakhabi@said.oxford.edu