CALL FOR PAPERS - SPECIAL ISSUE
Entrepreneurship & Regional Development
The Emerging Subfield of Religious Entrepreneurship
Brett Smith, Saulo Dubard Barbosa, Allan Discua Cruz and Miruna Radu-Lefebvre
There is a resurgent interest in research at the intersection of religion and entrepreneurship. This “theological turn” to entrepreneurship research (Smith, McMullen, & Cardon, 2021) includes an increasing number of publications in top-tier management and entrepreneurship journals (Block et al., 2020; Smith et al., 2019; Henley, 2017; Lindgreen and Hingley 2010), the creation of an academic research conference (www.liferesearchconference.com), and the launch of a special issue in one of the leading entrepreneurship journals.
While interest in the topic is not new - dating back to seminal works of Emile Durkheim ([1912] 1965), William James (1902) and Max Weber ([1930] 2013), there is a difference in the combined quantity and quality of the emerging research. In the past, a number of barriers have limited the development of this research stream, including lack of personal relevance to scholars, the declining importance of religion in parts of the world, skepticism about the validity of research on religion, and the seeming inevitability of secularization, among others (King, 2008). However, scholars are overcoming these obstacles – real or perceived – because of religion’s prevalence, centrality, established base of literature, and ability to provide novel answers to important questions in entrepreneurship (Smith, McMullen, & Cardon, 2021). In short, religion is a very old and still contemporary social phenomenon concerning varying populations worldwide, and which today increasingly attracts the attention of entrepreneurship scholars. As a result, a substantial number of scholarly activities are contributing to the development of the research domain of religious entrepreneurship as an emerging subfield.
The Distinctive Domain of Religious Entrepreneurship
The subfield of religious entrepreneurship occurs at the overlapping intersection of religion and entrepreneurship. Religious entrepreneurship is defined as the processes of “discovery, enactment, evaluation, and exploitation of opportunities to create future goods and services motivated by the cultural and ideological beliefs, practices, and/or outcomes rooted in religious faith” (Smith, Gümüsay, & Townsend, 2023). This definition provides the foundation for two essential research questions:
- Why, when, and how the practices based on believed superhuman powers affect opportunities, entrepreneurial action, entrepreneuring, and the consequences of entrepreneurial processes for the pursuer and other stakeholders; and,
- Why, when, and how opportunities, entrepreneurial action, entrepreneuring, and the consequences of entrepreneurial processes affect the practices and access to believed superhuman powers in the hopes of realizing good and avoiding bad.
These questions recognize religious entrepreneurship as bi-directional and recursive. It acknowledges not only the influence of religion on entrepreneurial antecedents, processes, and outcomes, but also the influence of entrepreneurship on religious antecedents, processes and outcomes. It recognizes that religion, as entrepreneurship, is a human experience. It can be both an individual as well as a collective endeavor occurring in entrepreneurial teams, families, communities, and regions.
Submission Instructions
We are open to the submission of both conceptual and empirical papers, with different levels of analysis and methodological approaches. We suggest the following as possible themes:
- How do different religious beliefs impact entrepreneurial action and practice?
- How do religious beliefs and practices vary across regions and how the interplay between religion and local culture affects entrepreneurship?
- How do religious beliefs and practices influence entrepreneurial teams?
- How do different religions differ or align in their views of economic and entrepreneurial practices?
- How do different religious interpretations (for instance, a fatalistic vs. agentic religious view of the world) foster or hinder entrepreneurship in distinct social contexts (poverty, aftermath of catastrophic events, warzones, etc.)?
- How does business failure impact entrepreneurs’ faith?
- To which extent entrepreneurs integrate their religious values and beliefs within their businesses? Why? What are the consequences of that (positive and negative)?
- What is the dark (and bright) side of religious entrepreneurship?
- To which extent are religious organizations entrepreneurial? How do they innovate?
- To which extent religious networks are used by religious entrepreneurs? Why and with what outcomes?
- What are the specific cognitive and social processes that connect religion and entrepreneurship?
- How do different cosmological views (e.g., monotheism vs polytheism) interact with personal characteristics (e.g., gender) in entrepreneurial settings?
- Are there significant differences between religious vs non-religious entrepreneurs and their firms (in terms of demographics, business characteristics, entrepreneurial processes and outcomes)?
For the full call for papers, see: https://tinyurl.com/2ttrvyra
References
Block, J., Fisch, C., & Rehan, F. (2020). Religion and entrepreneurship: A map of the field and bibliometric analysis. Management Review Quarterly, 70, 591-627.
Durkheim, E. [1912] (1965). The elementary forms of the religious life. New York: The Free Press
Gümüsay, A. (2015). Entrepreneurship from an Islamic perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 130, 199-208.
Henley, Andrew. 2017. Does religion influence entrepreneurial behaviour? International Small Business Journal 35.5: 597-617.
James, W. (1902). The varieties of religious experience: A study in human nature. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics.
Lindgreen, Adam, & Martin K. Hingley. 2010. Challenges and opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses arising from ethnically, racially & religiously diverse populations. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development 22 (1). 1–4. doi:10.1080/08985620903220470.
McMullen, J. & Shepherd, D. 2006. Entrepreneurial action and the role of uncertainty in the theory of the entrepreneur. Academy of Management Review, 31, 132-152.
Rindova, V., Barry, D., & Ketchen, D. 2009. Entrepreneuring as emancipation. Academy of Management Review, 34, 477-491.
Seabright, P. (2016). Religion and entrepreneurship: A match made in heaven. Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions, 201-219.
Shane, S., & Venkataraman, S. (2000). The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research. Academy of Management Review, 25, 217–226.
Smith, B., Conger, M., McMullen, J., & Neubert, M. (2019). Why believe? The promise of the role of religion in entrepreneurial action. Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 11, e00119. doi.org/10.1016/j.jbvi.2019.e00119
Smith, B., Gümüsay, A. & Townsend, D. (2023). Bridging worlds: The intersection of religion and entrepreneurship as meaningful heterodoxy. Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 20, e00406. doi.org/10.1016/j.jbvi.2023.e00406
Smith, B., Lawson, A., Barbosa, S. & Jones, J. (2023). Navigating the highs and lows of entrepreneurial identity threats to persist: The countervailing force of a relational identity with God. Journal of Business Venturing, 38, 106317. doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2023.106317
Smith, B., McMullen, J., & Cardon, M. (2021). Toward a theological turn in entrepreneurship: How religion could enable transformative research in our field. Journal of Business Venturing, 36, 106139. doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2021.106139
Smith, C. (2017). Religion: What it is, how it works, and why it matters. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Venkataraman, S. (1997). The distinctive domain of entrepreneurship research. Advances in Entrepreneurship, Firm Emergence and Growth, Vol. 3, 119-138.
Weber, M. [1930] (2013). The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. New York: Routledge.