Small Business Economics—Economic Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Entrepreneurship and Small Fir

Starts:  Aug 1, 2020 09:00 (ET)
Ends:  Aug 31, 2020 23:59 (ET)
Associated with  Entrepreneurship (ENT)
Small Business Economics: An Entrepreneurship Journal
Special Issue: Economic Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Entrepreneurship and Small Firms

Two Submission Types Welcome: 
Manuscript Proposals (due by August 1st) and Full Manuscripts (due by August 31st)

Guest Editors:
• Zoltan Acs, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
• David B. Audretsch, Indiana University Bloomington, USA
• Maksim Belitski, University of Reading, United Kingdom
• Christina Günther, WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management, Germany
• Alexander S. Kritikos, DIW Berlin, Germany
• Roy Thurik, Erasmus School of Economics, The Netherlands

Background
The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented challenge, threatening millions of people and businesses around the world, and is more likely to affect small businesses than large ones.

This is the third exogenous shock of the 21st Century, following 9/11 and the Global Financial Crisis. Responses to the previous recessions have made inequality and resilience themes of great interest to the scientific community. Will the response to COVID-19 be different from the previous two recessions? The response to COVID-19 may not just be limited to shielding business jobs in all kinds of firms, supporting entrepreneurship, and increasing government debt, but could also focus on creating new productive entrepreneurial activities and resilient location-specific entrepreneurial ecosystems.

The crucial question is how the resulting recession will affect firms, large and small, young and mature, family and non-family, community-embedded small firms and platformbased blitz-scalers. Will the effects be different from the previous two crises? The potential consequences of the pandemic for businesses may include, but not be limited to, closed premises, reduced operating hours, job cuts, supply chain disruptions, jeopardizing R&D processes, cessation of operations, business model changes, loss of key customers, restrictions on products/services, and others.

Each recession is also a cleansing process. Many large and small firms that were in bad shape are likely to be already gone. Interestingly, the COVID-19 pandemic is different as its impact is industry and country specific, also affecting large and small firms in relatively good shape (e.g. transport and hospitality sector, Europe and North America). New businesses and industries will emerge and grow. For example, the role of platform-based firms such as hybrid platform organizations and platform-matchmakers is changing rapidly.

The objective of this special issue is to identify new themes of interest for the scientific community as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as to help promote research and economic implications relevant to understanding the consequences of recessions and events like the COVID-19 pandemic more broadly, but within the remit of Small Business Economics: An Entrepreneurship Journal.

Types of Manuscripts
We welcome novel theoretical and empirical contributions with a clear pathway to impact theory, policy, or practice, along with the potential to deliver a significant contribution to the understanding of, response to, and recovery from recessions in the aftermath of major shocks (see below) by large and small businesses in developed and developing country contexts.

Proposals or manuscripts submitted to this special issue should contribute to the following strategic fields:
• The impact of exogenous shocks, in particular Ebola, 9/11, the Global Financial Crisis, 1918 Spanish Flu, and COVID-19 on the economy in general and, more specifically, on entrepreneurship, small and large businesses, non-for-profits, and social enterprises.
• How local and national government, public organizations, civil society, entrepreneurs, and large firms responded to the previous two recessions of the 21st Century and how will they respond to COVID-19 pandemic?
• Different approaches to employment in large and small firms, separate or comparative with the US vs EU vs other countries.
• New themes of interest for the scientific community in response to COVID-19 pandemic
• Resilience in transition to “new normal” for freelancers, small businesses, and large businesses.
• Digital technology, social impact, and creativity as a response to variety of global recessions.
• Understanding the concept of risk and uncertainty for entrepreneurs and incumbent firms and how COVID-19 changed the concept of risk and uncertainty.
• Open innovation, knowledge spillovers, high-tech and springboard innovation in small and large firms to ensure speedy retrenchment and recovery from the recession, but also as a competitive advantage between countries and innovation ecosystems.
• Economic geography as a solution for pandemic; how do different regions/ecosystems respond to the recession and which role do firms of different sizes play when implementing regional solutions.
• Regulation, reregulation, or de-regulation of large firms as a response to new monopolistic or oligopolistic firm structures.
• Rethinking the “Triple helix” partnerships in helping the world to respond to pandemic and crises and to develop more productive small businesses.

In terms of the level of analysis, submissions should focus on individuals, teams, firms, policymakers, university and corporate spin-offs, business groups and industries, regions, or countries. The main requirement is that the subject of the analysis is explicitly connected to the effect of the recession on the economy and a role of firm size.

The following criteria will be followed in evaluating submissions:
• Theoretical relevance to small business (essential): The manuscript addresses an area that is likely to provide theoretical and empirical contributions to guide the response of small business to the pandemic.
• Urgency (essential): Given the urgency of the response, we welcome proposals that clearly explain why and how the response to the pandemic can be organized and implemented quickly.
• Impact (essential): Demonstrate a clear route to impact if the recommendations could be implemented. Where relevant, this should include demonstration of links to relevant decision makers.
• Inclusiveness (desirable): Papers will be diverse and international scope of research e.g. global teams, widely represented stakeholders, cross-country analysis, inter-disciplinary research.
• Team (desirable): We welcome multidisciplinary teams and research that brings together different academic fields, providing multiple perspectives on those issues facing small businesses.

Submission Information
We invite two types of submissions: Manuscript Plans and Full Paper Submissions.

Both types of submissions should be prepared using the SBEJ Manuscript Preparation Guidelines (https://www.springer.com/journal/11187/submission-guidelines) Papers will be reviewed according to the SBEJ double-blind review process. Informal enquiries relating to the Special Issue, proposed topics and potential fit with the Special Issue objectives are welcomed.

Authors of full paper submissions and manuscript plan submissions will be invited to participate in the Paper Development Workshop in October 2020 via Zoom meeting. Resubmission for full papers is December 1, 2020, with the notification of acceptance to follow shortly.

Manuscript Plan: Due no later than August 2, 2020.
Proposals should be 5-10 pages (double spaced, including references) and should contain 1) a clear description of the research question and rationale for why it is important (i.e. how it resolves an important problem or question); 2a) theoretical / conceptual framing for conceptual papers, a description of the logic in the paper and the conclusions that can be drawn from it; 2b) for empirical papers, a description of the hypotheses, data collection strategy / feasibility, methods and expected results; and 3) a summary paragraph.

Please send manuscript proposals (as an attachment) directly to the Special Issue guest editors email: sbejspecialissue@gmail.com by August 1, 2020.

Conditional decisions on the manuscript plan will be made by August 1, 2020, with the full paper submissions due January 15, 2021. Notification of acceptance: by March 15, 2021.

Full Paper Submission : Due no later than August 31, 2020.
Full-paper submission for the special issue is available during June 15- August 31, 2020 submission window, with the reviewing process starting when the paper is submitted. The Review process will be within 50 days barring unexpected circumstances.