A group of feminist scholars met and collectively read feminist texts aloud. As an alternative to hegemonic modes of theorizing dominant in Management and Organization Studies (MOS), we propose ‘readinglistening’ as a feminist intervention: a practice in which collective reading aloud and embodied listening are re-conceived as acts of curiosity, joy, and relationality. Refusing the instrumentalization of reading and its privileging of theoretical abstraction, knowledge can emerge not only in words but in resonant voices and affective, communal presence. We conceptualize readinglistening as a practice that resists the normative pursuit of universal clarity, privileging theorization grounded in lived experience and enabling the emergence of theory through heterogeneous media and collaborative engagement. Readinglistening is offered as both inquiry and an invitation: for feminist theory to make sense in new ways, sustaining political and creative engagement with the world.

By combining theories of system thinking with a post-humanist approach, we established a nexus between human and non-human systems in the examination of systemic innovation. By doing so, we shed light on the interdependencies that exist between human and non-human systems and contribute theoretically as well as methodologically to theories on systems thinking by developing a framework for analysing systemic innovations focusing on the transition towards a more sustainable society. The identification of these interdependencies is particularly relevant to the discussions about systemic innovation and its role in the transformation towards a more sustainable society.

This chapter shows how entrepreneurship and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can be researched through the ethnographic method, focusing on understanding the social context of a certain phenomenon or person. Specifically, four ethnographic studies are introduced, which are discussed as themes: context, the role of the researcher, the research process, and lessons learned.

For almost three decades, Professor Dean A. Shepherd has had a profound impact on scholarly developments within the international community of entrepreneurship researchers. His extraordinarily broad and methodologically diverse research has significantly shaped and advanced our understanding of key aspects of the entrepreneurial process, including venture capitalists’ decision-making, the pursuit of business opportunities through entrepreneurial action, and the determinants of small business performance. By engaging with topics such as entrepreneurial failure, emotions, and entrepreneurship in the face of adversity and challenging environmental conditions, he has pioneered the exploration of important but traditionally neglected questions in entrepreneurship research. As a mentor, he has inspired and supported new generations of young researchers in their quest for high-quality research. In this article, we review the major tenets of Professor Shepherd’s work and highlight his main contributions to entrepreneurship research.

This study challenges the prevailing collaboration norms within academia, which predominantly adhere to meritocratic principles favoring masculine and individualistic values. These principles often result in a productivity paradigm centered on publications and high research performance. We contend that such collaboration norms perpetuate exclusionary practices, limiting the participation of women and individuals who do not neatly conform to the criteria of high productivity. Drawing inspiration from Long and colleagues' work in 2020, and guided by relational care ethics, we developed the notion that collaboration as a feminist strategy represents a transformative process of reflexive becoming and co-learning, emphasizing connectedness and generativity through care. Our findings highlight that through the lens of care, we transcended differing viewpoints, transitioning from self-centeredness to an other-oriented approach characterized by empathy, mutual understanding, and acceptance. Emotions emerged as embodied forms of knowledge, enriching the process of co-learning and co-becoming. Based on this, we propose a new constellation of Feminist Caring Collaboration in the academy, emphasizing the inclusivity of diverse participants and their varied skills and competencies, with full consideration of individuals' needs and future growth opportunities. Furthermore, we advocate for a broader acknowledgment of emotions such as satisfaction, joy, friendship, and pleasure in the knowledge production process, recognizing their significance in individuals' fulfillment in work and various life circumstances.

Professors Robert A. Baron and Michael Frese are the joint recipients of the 2024 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research. Their research contributions have helped establish the disciplinary foundation necessary to explore entrepreneurship from theoretical and applied psychological perspectives. From a theoretical psychological perspective, Professor Baron has repeatedly introduced a disciplinary scaffolding from cognitive psychology, social psychology, and judgment and decision-making psychology to develop the field's socio-cognitive perspective. He has examined entrepreneurship's basic "why" questions: (1) Why do some persons but not others choose to become entrepreneurs? (2) Why do some persons but not others recognize opportunities for new products or services that can be profitably exploited? (3) Why are some entrepreneurs so much more successful than others? From an applied psychological perspective, Professor Frese has examined entrepreneurship as the epitome of a proactive approach to work, advocating the benefits of personal initiative and the need for a self-regulatory approach to performance among both small business owners and employees in transition economies. Continually taking stock of what is known about the psychology of entrepreneurship through reviews and meta-analysis, he and his students have advanced an evidence-based approach to entrepreneurial training and performance in challenging contexts. Together, Professors Baron and Frese have served as ambassadors for the field of entrepreneurship, welcoming an entire generation of micro scholars to explore the entrepreneurial process and the psychology of the entrepreneurs who enact it.

A striving for research excellence and the implementation of third mission activities in the form of technology transfer have become standard practices at modern higher education institutions. The recent call for universities to include social innovation in their third mission and the apparent lack of involvement of universities in this area indicate that social innovation is not yet perceived as a legitimate activity by the academic community. We examine why this is the case and disentangle the legitimation journey of social innovation in research-intensive environments.

Professor Per Davidsson is the recipient of the 2023 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research. Throughout an extraordinarily productive career, he has made invaluable contributions in building the field of entrepreneurship. His early studies on entrepreneurship and culture and his studies on the growth of small businesses played an important role in the emergence and development of entrepreneurship as a scholarly field of research. He has also, continuously, made more conceptual contributions by critically probing the development of the field, and engaged in writing foundational books that have been used extensively in higher education institutes. By probing and challenging traditional assumptions throughout his career, he has contributed to the refinement and renewal of the field.

In this article, we introduce the special issue on entrepreneurship and embeddedness. We do so by providing a brief overview of existing research on the topic focused on three important conversations related to process, context and theoretical foundations. The overview highlights essential contributions from extant research and suggests that expansion and advancement in the research conversation can be accomplished by focusing on dynamic and multilayered conceptualizations of embeddedness and by broadening the theoretical foundations of our research. We also present and position the papers in the special issue within the conversations on process, context and theoretical foundations in entrepreneurship research on embeddedness. 

We conduct a comprehensive review of embeddedness in entrepreneurship research. Although the term “embeddedness” is frequently used in this field of study, less is known about the ways in which it is operationalized and applied. Using criterion sampling, we analyse 198 articles in order to investigate how embeddedness is conceptualized and what role it plays in the extant entrepreneurship literature. We categorize our findings based on different phases of the entrepreneurial process (early, mature and exit) and outline the dominant focus and the main conceptualization of embeddedness for each phase. We highlight important learnings for each of the three phases and identify potential areas for conceptual development. Across the phases, we find that embeddedness and context are often used interchangeably. We thus call for construct clarity in the field. In the existing literature, entrepreneurs are generally portrayed as reactive to embeddedness, resulting in a loss of entrepreneurial agency. To remedy this, we introduce the term agencement, which takes into account the relationship between the entrepreneurship and embeddedness. Further, entrepreneurs are found to be embedded in multiple contexts at the same time, and embeddedness can be understood at different levels and to different degrees. To address this complexity, it is relevant to focus on the embedding process itself, acknowledging that it takes place in social interactions including cultural, cognitive, and emotional aspects between contexts and across levels. While the extant literature supports the notion that embeddedness is important for understanding entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs, it does not necessarily support our understanding of how embeddedness takes form or why it takes certain forms. We therefore include a call for future research to turn to process and practice theories.