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AMP Special Issue Call on Inequality and Society

  • 1.  AMP Special Issue Call on Inequality and Society

    Posted 02-01-2023 20:59

    Entrepreneurialism, Inequality, and Society: Organizational and Policy Implications

     

    Submission deadline: September 1, 2023

     

    Editors-in-Chief: William Schulze (University of Utah), Robert Eberhart (UCLA)

    Guest Editors: Garry Bruton (TCU), Jeannette A. Colyvas (Northwestern University), Timothy B. Folta (University of Connecticut), Jennifer E. Jennings, P. Devereaux Jennings, and Michael Lounsbury (University of Alberta), Jeffrey G. York (University of Colorado, Boulder)

     

    OVERARCHING AIMS

    Entrepreneurship is now widely viewed as a font of not only economic growth but also social development (Aldrich & Yang, 2012; Markman, Russo, Lumpkin, Jennings, & Mair, 2016; Seelos & Mair, 2005; Thiel & Masters, 2014; Zhang & Li, 2010). The term has expanded into our vernacular, with managers exhorting their subordinates to "become more entrepreneurial" and scholars/policy-makers encouraged to focus on "social entrepreneurship" as a means of solving some of society's most intractable problems (Aldrich, 2011; Bruton et al., 2021). This emergent perspective of entrepreneurs as social benefactors represents a sea-change in contrast to the organizational dynamics, research facilities, and government-led research formerly credited for a world where innovation was at the forefront (Chandler, 1984; Chandler, Hikino, & von Nordenflycht, 2001; Gisler & Sornette, 2009; Oliver & Cole, 2019) Today, entrepreneurs are lauded as the heroic agents of beneficial change (Meyer & Bromley, 2013; Dacin, Dacin, & Tracey, 2011). A key implication is that the phenomenon of entrepreneurship influences social realms far beyond national and organizational institutions, shaping our understanding of what "ought to be" when approaching grand challenges and managing modern organizations. This shift constitutes one of the fundamental trends motivating this Special Issue.

    A second motivating trend is the manifest and subtle way in which the pursuit and endorsement of "entrepreneurialism" are linked with increased inequalities in modern society. In recent years, work in economics, sociology, and political science has shown how the engine of growth has slowed and the amount of associated inequality has sped up (Piketty, 2014). Overlaying and replacing the earlier system of managerialism, entrepreneurialism explains and justifies the uneven distribution of rewards in the name of risk-taking performance; indeed, so much so that there is now increased acceptance that those who "have not" have only themselves to blame for their fate (Eberhart, Lounsbury, & Aldrich, 2022). At the same time, entrepreneurialism is reordering the social stratification of society (Putnam & Garrett, 2021). Scholars note that successful firms in this new entrepreneurialism system become near monopolies, which, in concert with incumbent organizations, feed off the entrepreneurial juggernaut to dump capital into financial markets, transforming our perceptions and expectations of established firms and virtual monopolies in the process (Davis, 2010, 2022; Kenney & Zysman, 2019). Those firms that do not succeed become detritus for a new round innovation (Hoetker & Agarwal, 2007; Kroezen & Heugens, 2019). However, like the odds of lightening striking twice in the same spot, that new round may never occur, forcing the burdens of relocations, recapitalization, and retraining on the individuals left "holding the bag" (Nyberg & Wright, 2016). This Special Issue hopes to gain a more transparent understanding of the mechanisms, emerging norms, and new social beliefs of this wider system as the successful disperse their earnings in ways that increasingly decouple the flow of capital into uses discordant to the public interest.

    These two fundamental trends are further entwined and torqued by a third: societal disruptions triggered by the increase in geopolitical divisions and continuing waves of the Covid pandemic. These divisions and waves seem to stop and start the engine of entrepreneurialism and create greater fluctuations in the levels and varieties of inequality. Societal disruptions are altering the life experiences of individuals-from the manner and mode of international travel to choosing whether to send one's children to school versus keeping them home while working from home oneself. They have also invited social commentators to question the economic, social, and political arrangements that were previously thought to have enriched the developing world for the last three decades (Adler, 2019; Fukuyama, 2022; Zuboff, 2019). In our view, the emergent social disruptions also provide scholars with a form of natural experiment-albeit an unfortunately dramatic one-for assessing the relationship between entrepreneurship/entrepreneurialism and the social world in terms of workplace ideology, business models, and entwined practice (to name just a few).   

    In keeping with the current effort at reassessment, our call in this Special Issue is for studies of the phenomenon of entrepreneurialism as it shapes society, including critical evaluation of policy efforts to promote entrepreneurship, particularly with respect to inequality. Such a call opens up the opportunity to draw upon theoretical perspectives from an array of managerial studies in organization theory, economic sociology, and strategy-as well as in related areas of political science, business history, and social psychology. Notable recent work in this stream includes studies from an institutional perspective investigating how national policies recursively shape the development and norms of entrepreneurialism (Vogel, 2022; Bromley Meyer, & Jia, 2022; Coles Sine Hiatt, 2022), an analysis of how inequality became accepted as a norm in new work relationships (Eberhart, Barley, & Nelson, 2022), and, a comprehensive research agenda concerning the discourse of entrepreneurialism (Caliskan & Lounsbury, 2022). Other recent noteworthy studies have examined how entrepreneurialism has reshaped the norms of organizational misconduct (Palmer & Weiss, 2022), how diversity in social structures matters for entrepreneurship (Ozkazanc-Pan, 2022), and varieties of entrepreneurial motivations (Hartmann, Spicer, & Krabbe, 2022; Rindova, Srinivas, & Martins, 2022).

     

    ILLUSTRATIVE RESEARCH QUESTIONS

    Our Special Issue calls for extension of the above-note studies, seeking papers that advance theory and contribute to policy with respect to entrepreneurialism, inequality, and society. Illustrative (and non-exhaustive) questions that contributors to the Special Issue might wish to address are as follows:

    • What are the valorized models of entrepreneurship (including those that ostensibly try to modify such activity) and how do they reinforce the underlying ideology of entrepreneurialism?
    • How do underlying norms and cognitions embedded in a practice (such as entrepreneurship) engage with, or become detached from, that practice to become an ideology or logic of organizational and individual action?
    • What do the elites in entrepreneurialism look like and how has the stratification system around them been modified?
    • How do economic owners and political functionaries measure entrepreneurial effectiveness, and with what consequences for policy modifications?
    • What does it mean in this new system to secure a "social license" to operate or pursue "public good" in light of entrepreneurialism's ascendance?
    • How are human rights impacted by the move to entrepreneurialism, the use of neo-liberal supporting ideology, and exacerbated inequality?
    • In what ways does the political system support the new models of economic advancement and its associated inequalities, and are there policies that can dampen these effects?
    • How do entrepreneurial ideologies and policy shape the actions of executives and everyday citizens as they seek solutions for social problems?

     

    We also invite researchers to offer perspectives that are critical of the concerns raised in this call, thereby enriching and sharpening discourse about these the importance of entrepreneurialism in society today.  

     

    PAPER STYLE

    1. Scholars are reminded that AMP seeks papers that advance theory and contribute to policy (broadly defined).
    2. We welcome conceptual and qualitative (e.g., narratives, multiple cases) papers, but note that AMP is neither a theory-testing nor a mathematical modeling journal.

     

    SPECIAL ISSUE EVENT

    Post-submission: The editors will organize a hybrid Special Issue Paper Development Workshop (PDW) on 25 January 2024 at Anderson School of Management at UCLA. Authors who receive a "revise and resubmit" decision on their submitted manuscript will be invited to attend this post-submission workshop. Participation in the workshop does not guarantee acceptance of the paper in the Special Issue and attendance is not a prerequisite for publication.

     

    SUBMISSION PROCESS

    Submission deadline (full paper): 1 September 2023. The ScholarOne submission portal will be open from July 1 to September 1, 2023 (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/amp)

     

    Authors should follow the AMP Manuscript Preparation Guidelines:

    (https://aom.org/research/publishing-with-aom/author-resources/submitting-to-perspectives)

     

    Articles will be reviewed according to the AMP double-blind review process

     

    Paper Development Workshop at UCLA: 25 January 2024

     

    Selected References

     

    Adler, P. S. (2019). The 99 percent economy: How Democratic Socialism Can Overcome the Crises of Capitalism. Oxford University Press.

    Aldrich, H. E. 2011. Heroes, villains, and fools: Institutional entrepreneurship, NOT institutional entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship Research Journal, 1(2).

    Aldrich, H. E., & Yang, T. 2012a. Lost In Translation: Cultural codes are not blueprints. Strategic Management Journal, 6(1): 1–17.

    Aldrich, H. E., & Yang, T. 2012b. Lost In Translation: Cultural Codes are Not Blueprints. Strategic Management Journal, 6: 1–17.

    Bromley, Patricia, John W. Meyer, and Ruo Jia. "Entrepreneurship as cultural theme in neoliberal society." Entrepreneurialism and Society: New Theoretical Perspectives. Vol. 81. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2022. 55-75.

    Caliskan, Koray, and Michael Lounsbury. "Entrepreneurialism as Discourse: Toward a Critical Research Agenda." Entrepreneurialism and Society: New Theoretical Perspectives. Vol. 81. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2022. 43-53.

    Chandler, A. D. 1984. The emergence of managerial capitalism. Business History Review, 58(4): 473- 503.

    Chandler, A. D., Hikino, T., & von Nordenflycht, A. 2001. Inventing the Electronic Century: The Epic Story of the Consumer Electronics and Computer Industries. New York: Free Press.

    Coles, Ryan, Shon R. Hiatt, and Wesley D. Sine. "Revisiting the relationship between income equality and entrepreneurship: A social trust perspective." Entrepreneurialism and Society: Consequences and Meanings. Vol. 82. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2022. 51-67.

    Dacin, M. T., Dacin, P. A., & Tracey, P. 2011. Social entrepreneurship: A critique and future directions. Organization science, 22(5): 1203-1213.

    Davis, G. F. 2015. Editorial essay: What is organizational research for? Administrative Science Quarterly, 60(2): 179-188.

    Davis, G. F. 2010. Is shareholder capitalism a defunct model for financing development? Review of Market Integration, 2(2-3): 317-331.

    Davis, G. F. 2022. Taming Corporate Power in the 21st Century: Cambridge University Press.

    Eberhart, R.N., Lounsbury, M., & Aldrich, H. (Eds.). 2022. Entrepreneurialism and Society: New Theoretical Perspectives. (Vol. 82). London: Emerald.

    Eberhart, R. N., Barley, S., & Nelson, A. 2022. Freedom is Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose: Entrepreneurialism and the Changing Nature of Employment Relations. In R. N. Eberhart, M. Lounsbury, & H. E. Aldrich (Eds.), Entrepreneurialism and Society: New Theoretical Perspectives, vol. 81: 13-41: Emerald Publishing Limited.

    Fukuyama, Francis. 2022. Liberalism and its Discontents. Profile Books.

    Gisler, M., & Sornette, D. 2009. Exuberant innovations: the apollo program: Springer.

    Hartmann, Rasmus Koss, Andre Spicer, and Anders Dahl Krabbe. "Toward an Untrepreneurial Economy? The Entrepreneurship Industry and the Rise of the Veblenian Entrepreneur." Entrepreneurialism and Society: Consequences and Meanings. Vol. 82. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2022. 19-49.

    Hoetker, G. & Agarwal, R. 2007. Death hurts, but it isn't fatal: The postexit diffusion of knowledge created by innovative companies. Academy of Management journal, 50(2): 446-467.

    Kenney, M. & Zysman, J. 2019. Unicorns, Cheshire cats, and the new dilemmas of entrepreneurial finance. Venture Capital, 21(1): 35-50.

    Kroezen, J. J. & Heugens, P. P. 2019. What is dead may never die: Institutional regeneration through logic reemergence in Dutch beer brewing. Administrative Science Quarterly, 64(4): 976-1019.

    Markman, G. D., Russo, M., Lumpkin, G., Jennings, P. D., & Mair, J. 2016. Entrepreneurship as a platform for pursuing multiple goals: A special issue on sustainability, ethics, and entrepreneurship. Journal of Management Studies. Wiley Online Library.

    Meyer, John W., and Patricia Bromley. "The worldwide expansion of "organization"." Sociological Theory 31.4 (2013): 366-389.

    Nyberg, D. & Wright, C. 2016. Performative and political: Corporate constructions of climate change risk. Organization, 23(5): 617-638.

    Ozkazanc-Pan, Banu. "Rethinking social capital: Entrepreneurial ecosystems as contested communities." Entrepreneurialism and Society: Consequences and Meanings. Vol. 82. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2022. 69-87.

    Oliver, D., & Cole, B. M. 2019. The interplay of product and process in skunkworks identity work: An inductive model. Strategic Management Journal, 40(9): 1491-1514.

    Palmer, Donald, and Tim Weiss. "The unique vulnerabilities of entrepreneurial ventures to misconduct." Entrepreneurialism and Society: New Theoretical Perspectives. Vol. 81. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2022. 129-159.

    Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the 21st Century. Harvard Press.

    Putnam, R. D. & Garrett, S. R. 2021. The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again: Simon and Schuster.

    Rindova, Violina P., Santosh B. Srinivas, and Luis L. Martins. "How to break free: An orders-of-worth perspective on emancipatory entrepreneurship." Entrepreneurialism and Society: New Theoretical Perspectives. Vol. 81. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2022. 101-127.

    Seelos, C., & Mair, J. 2005. Social entrepreneurship: Creating new business models to serve the poor. Business horizons, 48(3): 241-246.

    David, R., Sine, W. D., & Serra, C. K. 2016. Institutional Theory and Entrepreneurship: Taking Stock and Moving Forward. In R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, R. Suddaby, & K. Sahlin-Andersson (Eds.), SAGE Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism (2nd Edition): Sage.

    Thiel, P. A., & Masters, B. 2014. Zero to one: Notes on startups, or how to build the future: Currency.

    Tolbert, P. S., David, R. J., & Sine, W. D. 2011. Studying Choice and Change: The Intersection of Institutional Theory and Entrepreneurship Research. Organization Science, 22(5): 1332-1344.

    Vogel, S. K. 2006. Japan remodeled: how government and industry are reforming Japanese capitalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Vogel, Steven K. "Neoliberal ideology and the myth of the self-made entrepreneur." Entrepreneurialism and Society: New Theoretical Perspectives. Vol. 81. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2022. 77-99.

    Zhang, Y., & Li, H. 2010. Innovation search of new ventures in a technology cluster: the role of ties with service intermediaries. Strategic Management Journal, 31(1): 88-  

    Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. Profile books.


    *****
    Jennifer and Dev Jennings

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    Dev Jennings
    :Professor & Coordinator of the Canadian Centre for CSR
    University of Alberta
    Edmonton, Alberta Canada
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