Call for Papers for a book titled “A Research Agenda for Entrepreneurial Decision Making” to be included in the Edward Elgar Research Agenda Book Series.

Editors: Saulo Dubard Barbosa and Alain Fayolle

 

« Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research.  Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary. »

 

Entrepreneurs make decisions all the time, yet we know little about the decisions they make and the decision making process they use. Entrepreneurship research has grown substantially in quantity and quality in the past decades, but it has not systematically benefited from the developments in decision-making research. At the same time, decision-making scholars tend to see entrepreneurship as just one of many potential fields of application for their theories, without seizing the specificities of the entrepreneurial process which can potentially call for new theory development.

Entrepreneurial decision-making can actually be quite different from other types of decision making, not only because entrepreneurs face extreme levels of uncertainty but also because they create the very decision environments in which they make decisions over time. Thus, entrepreneurs make multiple decisions at different levels and many of their decisions have durable effects for the organizations they create because those are meta-decisions, i.e., decisions that structure subsequent decision-making in the organization’s life. Entrepreneurial decision-making is therefore not only a fundamental aspect of the entrepreneurial process but also a key element of entrepreneurial success. If we are to support, educate, and provide advice and guidance to entrepreneurs, then we must develop and deepen our understanding of entrepreneurial decision-making, how it is done, and how it can be improved.

In order to achieve such a goal, we would suggest that at least two major evolutions are required. First, we need robust theoretical and conceptual foundations, drawing from the fields of entrepreneurship AND decision making under uncertainty, and integrating as well the latest developments on cognition research and neurosciences. Second, since entrepreneurial decisions are very diverse, we need to reflect upon the variety of research questions to be asked and the suitability of traditional and new methodological approaches to answer them.

This is why our intention with this book is to invite influential scholars to share with the readers their thoughts, vision, and propositions on what should be studied in the next decades. Which entrepreneurial decisions are still poorly understood and should be focused upon? Which methods are particularly suited to study them? What can recent developments in cognitive science and neuroscience teach us about how entrepreneurs make decisions? What are the implications of the entrepreneurial process in terms of decision-making? These are some of the questions to be contemplated in order to provide a collective contribution that offers a coherent and articulated view about the future of research on entrepreneurial decision-making. The contributors of this book are living and working in several countries. We attempt to find a good balance between European and non-European scholars, between senior well-known researchers and young promising ones.

 

Paper submission and Timetable

First submission: May 30, 2019

Feedback from the Editors: July 30, 2019

Submission of the revised papers: November 30, 2019

 

For any further information and paper submission, please contact Saulo Dubard Barbosa (barbosa@em-lyon.com) and/or Alain Fayolle (fayolle@em-lyon.com).