Theory as usual? Entrepreneurial futures in the AI age
Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have introduced a technological landscape once inconceivable, creating novel possibilities to fundamentally reshape both entrepreneurship research and practice. This Special Issue seeks to explore how we can help entrepreneurs identify and actualize the radically different futures enabled by AI. To this end, we invite scholars to reconsider the foundational concepts and assumptions of our field in light of the AI revolution.
Guest editors:
Stratos Ramoglou, University of Southampton; S.Ramoglou@soton.ac.uk
Dave Townsend, Virginia Tech; dtown@vt.edu
Sara Carter, University of Glasgow; Sara.Carter@glasgow.ac.uk
Yanto Chandra, City University of Hong Kong; ychandra@cityu.edu.hk
Dimo Dimov, University of Bath; dpd24@bath.ac.uk
Gerd Gigerenzer, Max Planck Institute for Human Development; gigerenzer@mpib-berlin.mpg.de
JBV Editor
Jeffery S. McMullen, Indiana University; mcmullej@iu.edu
Special issue information:
New technologies trigger economic disequilibria that translate into opportunities for personal profit, social betterment and economic growth (Kirzner, 1979; McMullen, 2011; Ramoglou & McMullen, 2024; Shane, 2000). To use terminology from the “external enablement” framework, the environmental changes brought about by nascent technologies enable the creation of new ventures that were not previously possible (Davidsson, Recker, Chalmers & Carter, 2023; Davidsson, Recker & von Briel, 2020). Yet, the fact that such futures can actualize does not mean that they will. In the absence of entrepreneurial imagination (Kier & McMullen, 2018), entrepreneurial action (McMullen & Shepherd, 2006) the right kind of entrepreneurial work (Ramoglou & McMullen, 2024) and design efforts (Dimov, Maula & Romme, 2023), possible futures will remain nothing but unactualized potential.
Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) do not constitute a mere technological change. Impressive developments in predictive and generative forms of AI create a technological landscape that was simply unimaginable in the recent past (Chalmers, MacKenzie & Carter, 2021; Lebovitz, Lifshitz-Assaf & Levina, 2022; Raisch & Fomina, 2024). In the words of the CEO of Google, the changes brought by AI will be even “more profound than electricity or fire” (Klein, 2023), generating new possibilities that will transform entrepreneurship research and practice in fundamental ways (Shepherd & Majchrzak, 2022; Townsend, Hunt, Rady, Manocha, & Jin, 2024).
If our world is currently impregnated with radically different futures, how can we help entrepreneurs spot them and make them real? Moreover, given that the question of which technologically-possible futures will actualize is open – not predetermined – how can we contribute to the realization of the most desirable futures and halt dystopic ones from materializing? Fundamentally: What is the role of entrepreneurship scholarship in this dramatically transformed landscape?
The core premise of this call for papers is that, as entrepreneurship scholars, we are in a unique position of privilege and responsibility. We can help entrepreneurs actualize the massive transformational potential brought about by AI; and, by extension, ensure that the lofty expectations in terms of economic growth will also materialize (Keynes, 2024; Zugravu, Safran & Mansour, 2024). As importantly, we have the unique opportunity to contribute toward making sure that this unprecedented environmental change will materialize into opportunities that will benefit all sorts of entrepreneurs and stakeholders, and that economic growth will be socially responsible and environmentally sustainable.
However, we also posit that, for this promise to be fulfilled, we cannot keep doing theory as usual. Akin to entrepreneurs who design paths toward the actualization of desirable futures (Dimov, Maula & Romme, 2023), our theorizing should also be cognizant of how our theoretical artifacts can help imagine, reveal, shape – even prevent – the enactment of envisioned futures (Munoz & Dimov, 2023). More broadly, we conceive the AI disruption as an epistemological disruption as well that forces us to revisit and reengineer fundamental conceptual presuppositions of our theoretical edifice. Consider, as an example, the question concerning the continued relevance of Knightian uncertainty (Ramoglou, Schaefer, Chandra & McMullen, 2024; Townsend, Hunt, Rady, Manocha & Jin, 2024). Are entrepreneurs still subject to the same epistemic limitations identified by Knight’s (1921) seminal theory more than one hundred years ago? If not, what constitutes a productive epistemic relationship between entrepreneurs and AI systems, given the latter’s immense technological capabilities yet also inherent structural limitations (Gigerenzer, 2022)?
More broadly, we encourage scholars to consider how we ought to rethink key concepts and assumptions at the core of our theories in the AI age. We welcome conceptual and empirical studies that address questions including (but not limited to) the following:
Entrepreneurial Knowledge
- What types of AI offer reliable knowledge-generating devices? In what contexts, industries and domains of application?
- What is the role (and limits) of AI-powered scientific methods in the pursuit of entrepreneurial knowledge?
- What are the major epistemic risks associated with the use of AI in entrepreneurial contexts?
- How does AI affect the use of heuristics or redefine ways of being rational in conditions of uncertainty?
Opportunity Types
- What are the newly emergent types of opportunities associated with AI advances?
- Do new technologies change the opportunity landscape in terms of frequency of emergence, the temporal window of their existence or the optimal timing of action?
- How might AI tools be reliably used in processes of opportunity search and pursuit?
- Do entrepreneurs and investors evaluate proposed opportunities generated by AI and human actors differently?
- How does AI change the balance between Kirznerian and Schumpeterian conceptions of entrepreneurship?
Entrepreneurial work
- What are the new faces of entrepreneurial work and modes of opportunity actualization?
- What parts of entrepreneurial work can be more meaningfully automated or augmented?
- To what extent does the use of AI systems in entrepreneurship involve new units of analysis, including entrepreneur-machine networks, AI-augmented platform entrepreneurship, among other novel forms?
- What is the appropriate mode of symbiosis of human and artificial forms of intelligence? Does this symbiosis differ across opportunity types and contexts?
Entrepreneurial Process Dynamics
- To what extent does AI transform or challenge existing lifecycle or process dynamics in entrepreneurship?
- How will the data-hungry, quantitative computational approaches in existing AI systems challenge or transform entrepreneurial ideation, customer discovery, product design and prototyping, or even entrepreneurial growth strategies?
- When, how, and why will AI impact the speed, scale, and scope of entrepreneurial learning?
Entrepreneurial Creativity & Cognition
- What is the role (if any) of human creativity in an era of artificial creativity?
- Are there types of creativity in which humans will retain a competitive advantage due to foundational limitations of AI systems?
- How do different types of AI complement, enhance, or even challenge entrepreneurial judgment, decision-making, and other related cognitive processes?
- Under what conditions does the growing use of AI tools in entrepreneurship impact entrepreneur psychological, social, and economic well-being, transforming the nature and role of entrepreneur identities and action?
- How can we use AI to train future entrepreneurs and raise their creativity? Could this be achieved experimentally in the lab or in real-world entrepreneurial settings?
Entrepreneurial Imagination
- Can AI tools facilitate enhanced clarity of desired futures? If so, does this clarity affect the predisposition to initiate action?
- Can AI-induced imagination of nonactual world states help improve entrepreneurs’ moral imagination and cultivate a stakeholder-centric mindset?
- How can we meaningfully conceive and theorize the concepts of artificial imagination and artificial agency in the domain of entrepreneurship?
- Whether apparent or actual agency, to what extent might current or near-future AI systems engage in agentic entrepreneurial action in a manner that challenges or transform existing paradigms?
- Does AI spark new ways of studying entrepreneurial imagination? Can we integrate AI as a new tool kit and, possibly, as a new paradigm, in entrepreneurial imagination research?
Entrepreneurs
- Can AI tools help democratize access to opportunities by eliminating any knowledge or creativity barriers?
- If not, what system-level interventions can ensure equal participation in the entrepreneurial arena?
- What are the unique resources and entrepreneurial skills in the face of a future of expanding AI capabilities?
- To the extent AI tools significantly enhance entrepreneurial productivity by enhancing the speed, scale, and scope of entrepreneurial action, what are the conditions under which AI systems alleviate versus exacerbate existing resource inequalities?
Grand challenges
- Could AI-driven entrepreneurship provide meaningful solutions to grand challenges, such as, technology-induced unemployment?
- Are there dystopic entrepreneurial futures associated with the AI revolution? If yes, how can their emergence be prevented and/or mitigated?
- Can large-scale AI tournaments induce quality solutions to grand challenges? If yes, what is the optimal design of such tournaments?
- What are the key challenges posited by AI in terms of ethics, sustainability and inclusion?
We welcome both empirical and purely conceptual contributions, without privileging any particular approach or type of study. Contributing papers can thus propose new metatheoretic perspectives, models, constructs, variables, computational methods, research and experimental designs, and/or a combination of different approaches. The merits of each submission will be evaluated in terms of whether it offers a substantive contribution that directly addresses how we ought to rethink some fundamental assumption(s) about entrepreneurial practice, theory, or our conventional ways of practicing entrepreneurship theory.
Paper Development Workshop
To create a strong pipeline of potential contributions, we will run a two-stage process. In the first stage – to attract submissions and stimulate dialogue – we will hold a paper development workshop. We anticipate that the workshop will take place at the pre-submission stage, in Spring 2025 at the University of Southampton Business School, and will invite interested authors to submit 3-page proposals for potential papers. We encourage authors of empirical submissions to also submit a proposal before completing the study so that to ensure alignment with the aims and objectives of the SI. The feedback provided at the workshop will help steer papers towards articulating contributions in line with the perspectives outlined above. Depending on the degree of interest, we could complement the workshop with online sessions for prospective authors to pitch their extended abstracts and receive feedback from the guest editors on how a potential paper can be shaped.
Manuscript submission information:
The Journal of Business Venturing’s submission system will be open for submissions to our Special Issue from September 30th, 2025. When submitting your manuscript to Editorial Manager®, please select the article type “VSI: Theory as usual?” and indicate that the manuscript is for consideration in “Theory as usual? Entrepreneurial futures in the AI age” special issue. Please submit your manuscript before November 1st, 2025.
Contributors should follow the directions contained in the JBV manuscript submission guidelines: Guide for authors - Journal of Business Venturing - ISSN 0883-9026 | ScienceDirect.com by Elsevier
All papers will be reviewed according to the standard policies of the Journal of Business Venturing and published online as accepted. It is anticipated that the special issue will be published virtually in 2027.
Further Information
For questions regarding the content of this special issue, please contact the guest editors.
References:
Chalmers, D., MacKenzie, N. G., & Carter, S. 2021. Artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship: Implications for venture creation in the fourth industrial revolution. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 45: 1028-1053.
Davidsson, P., Recker, J., & von Briel, F. 2020. External enablement of new venture creation: A framework. Academy of Management Perspectives, 34: 311-332.
Davidsson, P., Recker, J., Chalmers, D., & Carter, S. 2023. Environmental change, strategic entrepreneurial action, and success: Introduction to a special issue on an important, neglected topic. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 17: 322-334.
Dimov, D., Maula, M., & Romme, A. G. L. 2023. Crafting and assessing design science research for entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 47: 1543-1567.
Gigerenzer, G. 2022. How to stay smart in a smart world: Why human intelligence still beats algorithms. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.
Keynes, S. 2024. How to get big numbers when predicting AI’s effect on growth. Financial Times. Available: https://www.ft.com/content/8ee7fe88-ef5a-405a-9cac-914612fd4c89
Kier, A. S., & McMullen, J. S. 2018. Entrepreneurial imaginativeness in new venture ideation. Academy of Management Journal, 61: 2265-2295.
Kirzner, I. M. 1979. Perception, opportunity and profit. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lebovitz, S., Lifshitz-Assaf, H., & Levina, N. 2022. To engage or not to engage with AI for critical judgments: How professionals deal with opacity when using AI for medical diagnosis. Organization Science, 33: 126-148.
Klein, E. 2023. This changes everything. New York Times. Available: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/12/opinion/chatbots-artificial-intelligence-future-weirdness.html
McMullen, J. S. 2011. Delineating the domain of development entrepreneurship: A market-based approach to facilitating inclusive economic growth. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 35, 185-215.
Muñoz, P., & Dimov, D. 2023. Facing the future through entrepreneurship theory: A prospective inquiry framework. Journal of Business Venturing, 38, 106303.
Raisch, S., & Fomina, K. 2024. Combining human and artificial intelligence: Hybrid problem solving in organizations. Academy of Management Review, in press.
Ramoglou, S., Schaefer, R., Chandra, Y. & McMullen J. S. 2024. Artificial Intelligence forces us to rethink Knightian Uncertainty. Academy of Management Review, in press.
Ramoglou, S., & McMullen, J. S. 2024. “What is an opportunity?”: From theoretical mystification to everyday understanding. Academy of Management Review, 49(2): 273-298.
Shepherd, D. A., & Majchrzak, A. 2022. Machines augmenting entrepreneurs: Opportunities (and threats) at the Nexus of artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing, 37: 106227.
Shane S 2000. Prior knowledge and the discovery of entrepreneurial opportunities. Organization Science, 11: 448–469.
Townsend, D. M., Hunt, R. A., Rady, J., Manocha, P., & Jin, J. H. 2024. Are the futures computable? Knightian uncertainty and artificial intelligence. Academy of Management Review, in press.
Zugravu, A., Safran, B., & Mansour, T., 2024. “Using AI in economic development: Challenges and opportunities”, McKinsey & Company. Available: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-sector/our-insights/using-ai-in-economic-development-challenges-and-opportunities
Keywords:
Artificial Intelligence, Entrepreneurship Theory, Entrepreneurial Practice, Entrepreneurial Opportunities, Conceptual Foundations