CFP: Dreaming, Discovering, and Creating - AMR

[entrepreneurship-phd at lists.uni-essen.de]

Dreaming, Discovering, and Creating: The Visions and Costs of
Entrepreneuring
Academy of Management Review Special Topic Forum

Dreaming, discovering, and creating: The visions and costs of
entrepreneuring
Due Date: October 1, 2006

Guest Editors:
David J. Ketchen, Jr., Florida State University
Violina Rindova, University of Maryland
David Barry, Learning Lab Denmark and Copenhagen Business School

BACKGROUND

'Entrepreneuring' - a process that involves dreaming, discovering, and
creating - has a long and interesting pedigree. In the 13th century,
Marco Polo's dreaming, discovering, and creating led to a rich exchange
of goods and concepts (including paper currency) between Europe and
Asia. Christopher Columbus' efforts in the 15th century began a chain of
events that reshaped geopolitical structures. In the modern era, the
dreams, discoveries, and creations of Sam Walton (Wal-Mart), Sakichi
Toyoda (Toyota), Anita Roddick (Bodyshop), Yves Saint Laurent, Mary Kay
Ash (Mary Kay), Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA), and David McTaggart (Greenpeace),
and many others have changed the way billions of people work and live.

Media and academic attention tends to center on the titans of industry,
but many more smaller scale dreamers and tinkerers create new
enterprises, new social movements, and new markets. Examples like those
of former migrant workers Pablo and Juanita Ceja who created the very
successful Ceja Vineyards in the Napa Valley region of California
suggest that entrepreneuring is all around us. Indeed, for every Sam
Walton or Mary Kay Ash, there are hundreds of Pablo and Juanita Cejas.

Overall, entrepreneuring is a process that interconnects the dreams,
discoveries, and creations of entrepreneurs, employees, investors, and
customers. It can produce benefits for those who succeed in this risky
game. Yet, critics point out that some of the ventures listed above are
implicated in human and environmental tolls including employee
exploitation, deforestation, and even genocide.

The goals of this special topic forum are to (a) encourage scholars to
examine the process of entrepreneuring through novel theoretical lenses,
including critical approaches to the topic, and (b) build conceptual
foundations and frameworks that will facilitate empirical inquiry from
diverse perspectives. To achieve these goals, we invite manuscripts that
draw on perspectives from organizational behavior and theory, strategic
management, psychology, sociology, economics, anthropology, and
political science, among others. Imaginative and thought-provoking
perspectives from other social sciences, the humanities, and the
physical sciences are also welcome. Prior to submission, authors should
ensure that their papers address clearly defined problems and contribute
to theoretical development on the topic of entrepreneuring (rather than
focusing on traditional approaches to entrepreneurship).

Possible questions include, but are not limited to:

- Of what do entrepreneurs dream - value maximization, creative
expression, empowerment, autonomy, or enhancing life on the planet?  
- What can we learn about entrepreneuring from the arts and the
sciences? Are artists and scientists entrepreneurs? What are the
similarities and differences between the processes of scientific
discovery, artistic creation, and entrepreneuring? How does
entrepreneuring affect the commercialization of discoveries and artistic
creations? Is entrepreneuring an art, and how can aesthetic means of
inquiry contribute to the understanding of entrepreneuring?
- What is the relationship between entrepreneuring and innovating? When
does innovating support entrepreneuring, and when does it undermine it?
- Are there tensions or conflicts between the dreams, discoveries, and
creations of entrepreneurs and the interests of society? How can such
tensions or conflicts be effectively managed? What roles do concepts
such as integrity and trust play in entrepreneuring? 
- What are the personal and societal costs of entrepreneuring? To what
extent does entrepreneurship have a "dark side?" How might
entrepreneuring cultures be destructive and/or exploitative with respect
to human and natural resources? 
- Are entrepreneurs the new 'heroes' of society and what does this imply
for theories of entrepreneurship? From the perspective of critical
theory, for example, how does entrepreneurial celebrity affect the
distribution of value created by a new firm?
- To what extent is entrepreneuring a collective versus an individual
process? What are the factors that enable or constrain collective
co-creation?

We are also open to interesting and imaginative ideas that do not fit
neatly within any of the above topics, but that do fit within the spirit
and intent of this call for papers.

SUBMISSIONS

Please prepare the manuscript according to the AMR Style Guide for
Authors, which can be found in each January issue or at
http://aom.pace.edu/AMR/style.htm. To submit a manuscript for this
issue, please make sure that you have a Word file from which the title
page and all author-identifying references have been removed. Then go to
the site at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/amr/ and follow the
directions. Prospective authors are encouraged to contact any of the
special topic forum editors to discuss their ideas.

Source: http://www.aom.pace.edu/amr/entrepreneuring.html