International Small Business Journal

Special Issue on the ICSB 2012 Conference Theme:

Leading from the Edge: Pioneering Entrepreneurial Behaviour

Editors: Professor David Deakins, Professor Claire Massey and Dr Martina Battisti

Entrepreneurs and small firms increasingly operate in environments which require behaviour that can be considered pioneering and ‘Leading from the Edge’. These environments may be perceived to be ‘hostile’, ‘high risk’ or ‘challenging’, characterised by a high degree of uncertainty. Such environments and businesses responses spawn new areas of research. Examples may include new methods of trading, new financial transactions, new immigrant communities, new ‘untried’ technologies; or in marginal or highly turbulent economies with high degrees of political unrest, or post disaster economies. In such socio-political and physically uncertain environments, entrepreneurial behaviour needs to be particularly pioneering, creative, and innovative to be sustainable.

Both man-made ‘events’ and natural disasters can create new environments for entrepreneurial activity. These new environments are increasing in variety and frequency. A number of relevant theories could be applied related to the development and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities in such environments related to capability, entrepreneurial learning and absorptive capacity. For example, they may be analysed from Schumpeterian theoretical framework perspective of ‘creative destruction’, in that they provide new and different trading environments, in which traditional businesses may be in decline, yet provide new opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurial activity.

The editors will consider papers that address the main theme of the ICSB 2012 Conference: “Leading from the Edge”. The editors do not wish to be prescriptive, but wish to encourage authors to make their own interpretation of categories that may include entrepreneurial behaviour that is ‘Leading from the Edge’. Potential indicative categories could include pioneering entrepreneurial behaviour in

-       post disaster economies

-       highly marginal economies

-       the ‘informal economy’

-       legitimising ‘illegal’ entrepreneurship

-       economies characterised by political unrest

Papers will be subject to the normal double blind review process and are expected to be presented at ICSB 2012, although we do not exclude other contributions.

Selected papers will be published in a special issue of the International Small Business Journal:  http://isb.sagepub.com/

Contact d.deakins@massey.ac.nz