STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT SOCIETY SPECIAL CONFERENCE
CALL FOR PROPOSALS
STRATEGY CHALLENGES IN THE 21ST CENTURY: INNOVATION ENTREPRENEURSHIP
AND COOPETITION
ROME, ITALY, JUNE 5-7, 2016
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: December 3, 2015
WEB: rome2016.strategicmanagement.net
PROGRAM CHAIRS
Jay Barney
Paolo Boccardelli
Giovanni Battista Dagnino
Valentina Della Corte
Devi Gnyawali
Investigation on entrepreneurship and innovation has received
increasing attention in strategic management in the last decade. While
the two areas have been experiencing incredibly rapid growth, we
perceive two clear gaps hindering further advance: (1) developing the
intellectual links between entrepreneurship and innovation (e.g., the
most creative aspect of entrepreneurship); (2) the condition that most
extant research focus on entrepreneurship and innovation in
competitive or in cooperative settings.
In its recent advancements of user innovation and open innovation,
innovation is worthy of deeper attention in strategic management,
especially as concerns the interconnections with entrepreneurship in
different settings. While entrepreneurship has lately turned into a
popular issue in management, the role of creativity as well as of key
entrepreneurial capabilities, associated with the purpose of either
seizing existing or creating new opportunities, request additional
attention.
Correspondingly, little has been done in exploring the two main themes
within coopetitive settings; i.e., contexts in which competition and
cooperation merge together to give birth to a different kind of
strategic interaction. Yet, since they show themselves increasingly
entangled and intertwined in the business worlds, today competition
and cooperation cannot be considered as secluded spheres. This
condition calls for investigation on entrepreneurship and innovation
in coopetitive settings.
In this view, coopetition may be considered in a double perspective:
(a) it is a setting within which to analyze entrepreneurship and
innovation, and (2) it is a specific strategy (i.e., coopetitive
strategy) that may turn into a source of innovation and new
entrepreneurship and, therefore, of value creation and competitive
advantage for firms, industries, and the whole society. Such
considerations, on one side, allow to enlarge the overall context in
which innovation and entrepreneurship develop. On the other, they
provide room for a further strategic option that impinges on both
governance choices and competitive advantage.
By thoroughly detecting the potential links between innovation,
entrepreneurship and coopetition, the Strategic Management Society
Special Conference in Rome intends to delve into and grasp the
opportunities for detecting the relationships and reciprocal
influences between the relevant research areas and their impact on
competitive advantage and performance. With the Rome Conference, we
seek to gather an array of empirical and theoretical contributions
that significantly add to our understanding of the multiple unfilled
connections between coopetition, innovation, and entrepreneurship.
The city of Rome is truly unique. It is the key hub in Italy for
culture and archeological sites, as well as the capital city and the
political and administrative center of the country. Several Italian
state-owned and private companies are headquartered in Rome. The
Conference will be held in the premises of LUISS University campus
located in the city center. Conference attendees will have the chance
of visiting some of Southern Europe?s key cultural attractions coming
from a range of ages since the old Romans? era to the long-lived Papal
domination and after the country unification in mid-1800s. Rome is
also home of the Vatican City State, featuring St. Peter?s Square, the
Sistine Chapel, and its entire set of stunning attractions.
CONFERENCE THEME TRACKS
Track A: Building Entrepreneurial Communities That Create the Future
Track Chair: Sharon Alvarez, University of Denver
Entrepreneurial communities don't just happen - they are created and
fostered. People in these communities know that entrepreneurship is
not about an "ah ha" or "eureka" moment. These communities understand
that entrepreneurial progress sometimes goes forward and sometimes it
goes backward. Entrepreneurship is an iterative process with often
difficult to explain outcomes that are even more difficult to quantify
ex-ante. This process typically involves more than a single
entrepreneur, it includes the team, potential customers, and relevant
stakeholders. Entrepreneurial communities foster open communication,
creativity, experimentation, intellectual curiosity, and tolerate
failure as well as celebrate successes.
Track B: Organizing to Innovate with Competitors
Track Chair: Massimo Colombo, Polytechnic of Milan
This track will address the general issue of how firms should design
their organization and strategy to effectively innovate while
collaborating with actual and potential competitors. This type of
collaborations are both very valuable and very dangerous, especially
for entrepreneurial ventures. How can entrepreneurial ventures
alleviate the misappropriation risk inherent in these collaborations?
What is the role of the institutional context in which firms are
embedded, including rules, norms and social relations? Does this role
vary depending on firms' characteristics and strategy? What type of
organizational structure and management practices (e.g., hiring and
training practices) are most conducive to absorbing knowledge from
competitors? Does distance (e.g., geographical, cognitive,
organizational) matter? How can third parties (e.g., regulators and
policy makers, financial intermediaries, innovation users, other
stakeholders) facilitate the success of these collaborations?
Track C: Coopetition Strategy at the Crossroads: The Challenge of
Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Track Chairs: Giovanni Battista Dagnino, University of Catania and
Valentina Della Corte, University of Naples Federico II
This track aims to unveil the key strategic relationship between
innovation, entrepreneurship, and coopetition. It is also directed to
grasp the role of innovation and entrepreneurship in coopetitive
settings. Why do firms decide to ?coopete?? How do coopetitive
settings foster innovation processes? How do technological forces
drive the process of coopetition? What are the implications of
coopetitive settings on technological advancement and adoption of 2
technological standards? How can entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial
managers benefit from the pursuit of coopetition strategies? Can
coopetition strategies involve both large firms and small and medium
enterprises? How can the capability-based view of the firm contribute
to a dual coopetition and entrepreneurship perspective? How can the
cultural perspective have a say in a dual coopetition and
entrepreneurship approach?
Track D: Coopetition and Innovation in Creative Industries
Track Chair: Paolo Boccardelli, LUISS Guido Carli University
This track targets papers that deal with the management of coopetition
and innovation of in creative industries. What are the main enablers
of cooperation and coopetition in creative industries? How is it
possible to support value creation and value appropriation in creative
interorganizational business models? How can firms overcome the
intricacies related to the economic evaluation of creative products,
which often raises problems with intellectual property protection and
funds attraction? To what extent, differences in culture and approach
between partners affect cooperation and coopetition in creative
industries?
Track E: Coopetitive Ecosystem Dynamics: Emerging Trends and Opportunities
Track Chair: Elias Carayannis, George Washington University
This track focuses on the nature and dynamics of coopetitive
ecosystems in a knowledge-based and knowledge-driven environment. We
aim to address questions such as: what is the nature and dynamics of
coopetitive strategies in knowledge-driven environments? How can these
can apply to open innovation ecosystems? How do the various types of
formal and informal knowledge acquisition processes affect the
dynamics of a coopetitive ecosystem? What is the role of learning in
an institutional context for coopetitive ecosystems? What is the role
of co-evolution and co-specialization of complementary and reinforcing
players in coopetition ecosystems? How can co-creation, coopetition,
co-evolution, and co-specialization competences help business models
to evolve into more effective and efficient mechanisms of value
creation within ecosystems?
CONFERENCE SPECIAL TRACK
Track R: Research Methods
Track Chairs: Karen Schnatterly, University of Missouri and Brian
Boyd, City University of Hong Kong
This track is focused on critiques, commentaries and discussion about
key methodological research issues in the field of strategic
management. When examining topics such as entrepreneurship, innovation
and coopetition, measurement and methodological issues are of critical
importance. Measurement of the levels of each of these as well as the
results of actions in these areas is difficult for the organization
and for researchers. How do we measure outcomes? Where are unobtrusive
measures necessary? Are measures being tested for consistency and
validity? What methods (research and analytical) give us the best
chance to build understanding of these important strategic concerns?
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES AND REQUIREMENTS
Proposals (5-7 pages, for paper and panel sessions)
relating to the conference theme are invited.
Only original, unpublished work is sought.
Deadline for Submission of Proposals: December 3, 2015
To learn more about the SMS Special Conference in Rome and the
submission process, please go to:
rome2016.strategicmanagement.net
Timeline:
December 3, 2015 Submission Deadline for Proposals
December 10, 2015 Co-Author Confirmation Deadline
Late January, 2016 Notifications of Program Review Committee Decisions
February 29th, 2016 Early Registration and Presenter Registration Deadline
June 5?7, 2016 SMS Special Conference in Rome
----------------------------------------------
Giovanni Battista Dagnino
Professor of Business Economics and Management
Department of Economics and Business
University of Catania
Corso Italia, 55
95129 Catania (Italy)
Tel. 39-095-7537-622
Fax: 39-095-7537-610
E-mail:
dagnino@unict.it
Web:
www.giovannibattistadagnino.eu