European Entrepreneurship Research Traditions and Future Avenues

Entrepreneurship Research in Europe Future Avenues for Research 11 me Congr s de l Acad mie de l Entrepreneuriat et de l Innovation Repenser l entrepreneuriat : des racines et des r ve Montpellier University, 3 June 2019 Robert Blackburn Kingston University, UK r.blackburn@kingston.ac.uk https://journals.sagepub.com/home/isb 1

Introduction and context Aims Stimulate your thinking about the field of entrepreneurship How can we, as mortals, contribute to shaping and executing agendas? Why do you undertake your research agenda(s)? Knowledge generation? Theory development? Practice? Policy? How relevant is your entrepreneurship research to societal, economic & political changes? Set out an argument for change What have we achieved and what opportunities are available? 2

Growth in volume, quality and legitimization Field has disparate roots but has undoubtedly grown Social science traditions economics; psychology, geography etc Move from a discovery & phenomenon-driven to theory driven approaches Growth in activity in last 40 years Academics; Univ courses; research programmes; conferences; Publication outlets: numerous handbooks (eg Fayolle, 2014); journals etc Identification as a field of study Differentiation, mobilization and legitimization probably achieved Embraced range of ontological and epistemological approaches Diversity but room for development? 3

European entrepreneurship research tradition Is there a European tradition in entrepreneurship research Policy orientated, funded by governments and EU cf USA European wide institutions help underpin activity; pan European projects ECSB & RENT Conferences; doctoral consortia European based journals: SBE, E&RD; ISBJ; Frontiers in Entrepreneurship books But little evidence of European Research Council activities Hence, some evidence of a pan-European research tradition But also heterogeneous: national flavours underpin (Welter & Lasch, 2008) National projects, conferences and events show enduring national activities Eg. French speaking events, publications and journals! But, what of the future? How far has the field developed? What are the future opportunities? Is it business as usual ? Take the UK as an example 4

A national assessment: UK entrepreneurship research (REF2014) 5

Classification of ISBJ papers 2016-2019 (n=143) Entrepreneurship/ entrepreneurs Multi-coded Innovation/ etc SMEs Conceptual Macro (72) 11 39 42 9 Micro (56) 5 34 19 22 National (86) 47 48 12 13 International (17) 3 14 5 4 SMEs & Entrepreneurship bulk of papers Dominance of macro & national studies Innovation papers in a minority. V few conceptual Low number of international papers surprising Majority of papers (92) had a geographical element 45 papers conceptual (15 purely so) Limitations: ISBJ; top-down classification; verification; depth of multiple codes per paper; looking back at outcomes 6

ISBJ Papers submitted and accepted 2016-2019 by lead author Country UK USA Spain Italy Australia China France Canada Sweden New Zealand Netherlands Belgium Denmark Ireland Switzerland Grand Total Submitted Accepted % Accepted 317 117 76 74 67 60 41 40 35 23 17 16 13 11 39 17 4 2 4 4 2 2 2 6 6 2 2 3 3 105 12 15 5 3 6 7 5 5 0 26 27 13 15 27 100 NB selected countries only 3 1495 7 7

Main thesis Need a careful re-thinkof the conventional incremental pathway of entrepreneurship research Tackle the hegemony of the old guard & conventional agendas Eg. Legacy of Entrepreneurship and . approaches Overcome polarisation of agendas and methods Small business vs entrepreneurs Relevance vs rigour Theory vs practice & policy Quantitative vs qualitative Need to embrace new, specific agendas related to contemporary challenges not just hole filling Utilise multidisciplinary approaches What are today s relevant research issues and questions? Are our agendas keeping up? 8

Who are our audiences and stakeholders? Our European tradition is empirical, theoretical and policy driven But, evidence suggests growth in internal citations (Jing et al., 2015) Implies inward looking rather than exposed to outside literatures & scholars Advantages and disadvantages: development of field; narrowness of field Producing outputs that do not reach audiences and undervalue impact on real world activities Attention needs to be paid to linking into wider societal challenges to promote interest and vibrancy in the field Implication we need to look outside our narrow field Develop research that is robust, engaged and impactful 9

Future research opportunities eg. Societies Grand Challenges Important context: We need to identify the challenges in our specific research areas 10

Examples: Entrepreneurship researchs grand challenges: Disruptive technologies -workplace effects -entrepreneurial opportunities -pathway of adoption -improvements in productivity -small business growth? Inequality Gig economy -Financial insecurity -property rights -social welfare -home & work -loneliness -entrepreneurs access to justice -access to resources -demographic characteristics -migrant population -unemployment -rural entrepreneurs Unleashes multi-disciplinary research opportunities ! Business transfer -financial -human stress -family business -alternative forms ownership Global Crises -unexpected events -natural eg flooding earthquakes -man-made terrorism -enhanced resilience 11

Example: digitisation of SMEs in healthcare Aim to understand and increase productivity in SMEs Help SMEs overcome barriers of risk in technology adoption Use of a technology foresight methodology Proven in corporate sector systematic innovation processes A sector based pilot project: digital healthcare Understand the challenges and advantages of SME technology adoption SMEs include providers or technology; buyers (healthcare practices) and users (eg doctors; ambulances) Overall contributes to raising productivity; enhanced healthcare; ageing population Requires multi-disciplinary involvement Academics in science & engineering; digital health experts SMEs in healthcare Academics in strategy and entrepreneurship (core team) 12

Phases of project development First phase : Development of a preliminary list of technologies that are potentially relevant for future SMEs productivity; Identification of SMEs to be involved in the project (target number: 15); Identification of technology experts (target number: 5) Second phase, Delphi process: 3-round Delphi process enabling the evaluation of the preliminary list of technologies by SMEs and technology experts Attractiveness and feasibility criteria Produce a shared understanding of the most relevant technologies for the target cluster of SMEs Third phase two workshops (WS): WS1 through which all the entrepreneurs and technology experts met and assessed the evolution, impact of technologies (e.g. new products and process); WS2 response options available for adopting/developing the critical technologies identified in the Delphi 13

Preliminary list of technologies (literature) 1. 2. 3. 4. Machine to machine communication Internet of things Cloud computing Fog computing and Mobile Edge computing Wireless body area networks communication protocols Wireless body area networks Wireless sensors (wearables) Smart devices Robotics 10. Smart e-health systems 11. 3D printing 12. Health Data Formats 13. Big data analytics 14. Artificial Intelligence 15. Image analysis and facial recognition 16. Speech recognition and chatbots 17. Social media 18. Security and privacy (cryptography) 19. Augmented reality and virtual reality 20. Biometrics 21. Blockchain 22. Micropayments 23. Technologies from self-driving cars 24. Automated Transport Systems (drones, autonomous ambulance) 25. New touch interfaces and displays 26. Human augmentation 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 14

Delphi: 3rd round overall results 12 Big Data Analytics 10 Artificial Intelligence 8 Wireless sensors Smart devices Internet of things Health data formats Feasibility 6 Cloud computing Security privacy Next steps are to work with developers and think through applications & funding 4 Machine to machine communication 2 0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 Attractiveness

What is to be done? New dawn in entrepreneurship research Need to build up from our theoretical and practical roots Mobilise at individual, collective and international levels Mobilise multidisciplinary teams We already have examples (eg. Well-being projects) Academies need to promote collaborations How do we achieve this? Initiatives to sponsor major research themes Policy engagement Co-produce knowledge, shape agendas and interventions Secure funding for large-scale projects Impact agendas The next BIG challenge for entrepreneurship researchers https://impact.ref.ac.uk/casestudies/ Work in progress! 16

Implications for research capabilities and skills People do research (until automated!) Encourage new cadre of critical researchers Exemplified by problematizing rather than simple gap filling Strengthen understanding of research methods Need to break out of dominant ways of thinking Avoid fetishism of publication Accept need to publish in high-quality outlets But need to work in teams But need for free flow of ideas and approaches Interaction with mainstream disciplines: workshops and conference attendance It s our choice: academies & senior researchers To build upon our roots and realise our full potential 17

Re-thinking Entrepreneurship: Roots and Dreams Bonne chance! Thank you http://www.kingston.ac.uk/staff/profile/professor-robert-blackburn-389/ r.blackburn@Kingston.ac.uk Blackburn, RA, De Clercq, D. & Heinonen, J (2018) (eds) Sage Handbook of Research on Small business and Entrepreneurship, Sage London. 18