Call for Papers for a Special Issue - ADVANCING STRATEGIC ENTREPRENEURSHIP RESEARCH THROUGH META-ANALYSIS
Submission Deadline: August 1, 2019
Guest Editors
James G. Combs, University of Central Florida
T. Russell Crook, University of Tennessee
David J. Ketchen, Jr., Auburn University
Mike Wright, Imperial College Business School
SEJ Co-Editor
Melissa Graebner, University of Texas at Austin
The guest editors for this special issue of the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal (SEJ) invite papers for consideration for publication on the topic of “Advancing Strategic Entrepreneurship Research through Metaanalysis.”
Background and Special Issue Purpose
Strategic entrepreneurship occurs when firms pursue wealth creation by integrating their entrepreneurial (i.e., opportunity-seeking, explorative) and strategic (i.e., advantage-seeking, exploitative) activities (Hitt, Ireland, Camp, and Sexton, 2001; Ireland, Hitt, and Sirmon, 2003; Ketchen, Ireland, and Snow, 2007). Strategic entrepreneurship is a relatively young field, but it is growing rapidly, and many important research questions have now attracted a great deal of empirical attention.
As the volume of strategic entrepreneurship research continues its upward trajectory, meta-analysis and related techniques are needed in order to consolidate knowledge involving the entrepreneurial and strategic activities that enable wealth creation for both nascent and established firms. To this end, the goal of the SEJ special issue is to publish a set of impactful papers that examine the evidence supporting important theories, help resolve controversy surrounding theoretical relationships (i.e., is there support and if so how much?), and build and test new theory involving important phenomena involving opportunity- and advantage-seeking activities. The papers might also consider similarities and differences among such activities and wealth creation, for example, in studies of new versus established firms, smaller versus larger firms, firms across a range of institutional contexts, and across different research methodologies.
Meta-analysis is a set of analytical tools that allow researchers to bring coherence to varying findings across studies and draw robust conclusions about whether and how much (i.e., effect size) a theoretical relationship has received empirical support (Schmidt and Hunter, 2014). Uncovering to what degree extant findings support established theory is important because such knowledge becomes the foundation upon which new and more detailed theoretical relationships can be developed.
More recent advances, such as meta-regression (MARA), meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM), and qualitative meta-synthesis take cumulative evidence assessment to the proverbial ‘next level’ by providing expanded opportunities to address new research questions. Meta-regression allows researchers to develop and test theory about boundary conditions that shape the direction and size of focal relationships. Often these boundary conditions – such as institutional differences among countries (e.g., Yiu, Hoskisson, Bruton, and Lu, 2014) – are difficult to detect in a single primary study, but combining results across many studies puts the issue well-within a metaanalyst’s grasp. For example, SEJ has contributed to a growing body of research investigating how different types of human capital influence new venture success (e.g., Chen, Kor, Mahoney, and Tan, 2017; Eesley and Roberts, 2012; Li, Zhang, Li, Zhou, and Zhang, 2012), and MARA might be a useful tool for learning about the conditions under which these different types of human capital are most beneficial. MASEM uses the findings of meta-analyses as the inputs to structural equation models. This allows researchers to go beyond the bivariate links examined by metaanalysis and test nomological networks and compare the strength of relationships offered by competing theories (e.g., Bergh et al., 2016). Such an analysis might help consolidate knowledge in areas such as around corporate venturing, wherein numerous antecedent and consequences have been suggested and investigated (e.g., Dushnitsky and Lavie, 2010; Gaba and Bhattacharya, 2012; Hill, Maula, Birkinshaw, and Murray, 2009). Qualitative metasynthesis involves assessing the accumulated qualitative evidence surrounding research questions such as those listed below.
Possible research questions
Questions that might be examined in special issue submissions include, but are not limited to:
Opportunity-Seeking
- Which key entrepreneurial resources and capabilities most enable firms to pursue new opportunities, and under what conditions?
- What are the most important antecedents to opportunity recognition and/or opportunity pursuit?
- What are the key factors driving funding decisions by different funding sources and what contextual factors influence funding decisions for each funding source?
- What institutional factors enable or constrain the pursuit of opportunity-seeking actions?
Advantage-Seeking
- How strongly are different entrepreneurial resources and capabilities tied to sustained firm success and what contingencies factors influence these relationships?
- Under what conditions are different ownership structures beneficial to ventures?
- What factors shape whether new ventures survive or fail, and what institutional factors shape the relationship between these factors and new venture survival?
- What are the most important antecedents to international entrepreneurship, and how do these antecedents relate to international strategy and its performance outcomes?
- What are the key factors driving success or failure when entering emerging economies?
- How do entrepreneurs’ cognitive processes shape entrepreneurial actions new venture outcomes?
- Under what conditions do entrepreneurs appropriate more of the value that is created by their ventures?
At the intersection of opportunity- and advantage-seeking
- What factors most lead entrepreneurs to participate in informal economies and does doing so shape firm outcomes?
- How might trait and process theories of entrepreneurship be integrated?
- How do new venture characteristics affect the volume and type of strategic alliances used and what is the impact of such alliances on venture growth and performance?
- What are the nomological networks that surrounds the concepts of entrepreneurial orientation and exploitation? How are they related?
The above list is merely illustrative; the special issue is open to papers that address theoretical questions involving a wide range of strategic entrepreneurship phenomena at the macro, micro, and meso-levels. Of note, while we are not looking for methodological contributions per se, we would welcome contributions that use different metaanalytic techniques to accumulate evidence.
Submission Guidelines
Manuscripts will be expected to make important theoretical and empirical contributions across a wide range of entrepreneurship topics. Our objective is to cast a wide net in terms of topic, but authors should focus on areas that have captured the attention of entrepreneurship scholars. Thus, manuscripts that resolve confusion in the literature, and where there are potentially new and theoretically important moderators and/or mediators that can be assessed through meta-analysis, are especially encouraged.
Submissions to this special issue should be prepared in accordance with SEJ’s submission process described at http://sej.strategicmanagement.net. Submissions can be made via the SEJ website at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sej between July 1, 2018 and August 1, 2019. Please make sure to indicate that your submission is for the special issue on Advancing Strategic Entrepreneurship Research through Meta-analysis.
Further Information
For questions regarding the content of this special issue, please contact the guest editors:
James G. Combs, University of Central Florida - james.combs@ucf.edu
T. Russell Crook, University of Tennessee - trc@utk.edu
David J. Ketchen, Jr., Auburn University - ketchda@auburn.edu
Mike Wright, Imperial College Business School - mike.wright@imperial.ac.uk
For questions about submitting to the special issue, please contact the SEJ managing editor: Liz Moran, SEJ@strategicmanagement.net.
References
Bergh DD, Aguinis H, Heavey C, Ketchen DJ, Boyd BK, Su P, Lau C, Joo H. 2016. Using meta‐analytic structural equation modeling to advance strategic management research: Guidelines and an empirical illustration via the strategic leadership‐performance relationship. Strategic Management Journal, 37, 477-497.
Chen PL, Kor Y, Mahoney JT, Tan D. 2017. Pre‐market entry experience and post‐market entry learning of the board of directors: Implications for post‐entry performance. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 11, 441-463.
Dushnitsky G, Lavie D. 2010. How alliance formation shapes corporate venture capital investment in the software industry: a resource‐based perspective. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 4, 22-48.
Eesley CE, Roberts EB. 2012. Are you experienced or are you talented?: When does innate talent versus experience explain entrepreneurial performance? Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 6, 207-219.
Gaba V, Bhattacharya S. 2012. Aspirations, innovation, and corporate venture capital: A behavioral perspective. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 6, 178-199.
Hill SA, Maula MV, Birkinshaw JM, Murray GC. 2009. Transferability of the venture capital model to the corporate context: Implications for the performance of corporate venture units. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 3, 3-27.
Hitt MA, Ireland RD, Camp SM, Sexton DL. 2001. Strategic entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurial strategies for wealth creation. Strategic Management Journal, 22, 479-491.
Ireland RD, Hitt MA, Sirmon DG. 2003. A model of strategic entrepreneurship: The construct and its dimensions. Journal of Management, 29, 963-989.
Ireland RD, Webb JW. 2007. Strategic entrepreneurship: Creating competitive advantage through streams of innovation. Business Horizons, 50, 49-59.
Ketchen DJ, Ireland RD, Snow CC. 2007. Strategic entrepreneurship, collaborative innovation, and wealth creation. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 1, 371-385.
Li H, Zhang Y, Li Y, Zhou LA, Zhang W. 2012. Returnees versus locals: Who perform better in China's technology entrepreneurship? Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 6, 257-272.
Schmidt FL, Hunter JE. 2014. Methods of Meta-Analysis: Correcting Error and Bias in Research Findings. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
Yiu, DW, Hoskisson RE, Bruton GD, Lu Y. 2014. Dueling institutional logics and the effect on strategic entrepreneurship in Chinese business groups. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 8, 195-213.