Research on student entrepreneurship is clearly burgeoning, yet it remains a fragmented field. Currently, no literature review exists that specifically focuses on university students’ entrepreneurship and provides an overarching framework to encompass the different pieces making up student entrepreneurship.
It is noteworthy that the research stream on student entrepreneurship views entrepreneurial activity as a step in the natural evolution of a university system that emphasises economic development in addition to the more traditional mandates of education and research.
The main element in entrepreneurship education is the cultivation of teaching styles (Miclea, 2004). In this point, Sexton, et al., 1997 mentioned the necessity to consider the motivations and necessities of potential entrepreneurs. For this reason, Jack and Anderson, 1999; Fiet, 2000, 2001; and Nijhuis and Collis, 2005 reveal that universities following the patterns of entrepreneurial education (theory about small and medium size enterprises management) compensate with external experience sources (practices with business community).
This issue reveals the importance of factors that affect significant societal influences from academia to society and vice versa, such as the high interdependence with the government and industry firms, the different sources of income, the entrepreneurial activities of all community members (students, academic and faculty) and the implementation of different strategies, to improving the creation of new venture and the adjustments in organisational structure.
Consequently, most of the articles in this research stream attempt to reveal organisational designs of universities that inhibit or enhance the commercialisation of university inventions. Studies have revolved around incentive systems, university status, location, culture, intermediary agents, focus, experience, and defined role and identity. In addition to organisational design, other studies focus on the characteristics and roles of faculty and the nature of the technology to be commercialised.
Thus, some studies express, implicitly or explicitly, the phenomena of intrapreneurship, or the process that goes on inside an existing firm (in this case, institution), and leads not only to new business ventures, but also to other innovative activities and orientations such as development of new products, services, technologies, administrative techniques, strategies and competitive postures.
The structural shifts in the entrepreneurial orientation of universities pave the way for the ability to innovate, recognise and create opportunities, work in teams, take risks and respond to challenges. On its own, it seeks to work out substantial guidance in organisational character so as to arrive at a more promising posture for the future. In other words, it is a natural incubator that provides support structures for students to initiate new ventures: intellectual, commercial and conjoint.
We wish to explore the dimensions of the creative process in contrast to problem solving or mere intelligence. Universities that want to encourage creative thought might need to embrace the visions of students and the diversity in personalities, styles and ideas. Focus occurs on a university infrastructure that evolves in stressing the particular ability to add value by organising creative knowledge: only in understanding who tends to be creative and what types of influences stimulate or inhibit the creative process can students hope to find ways to “manage” it. In fact, “management” assumes that one has the knowledge and the power to effect thought processes that lead to creative solutions. These insights include recognising the value of judgement – that is, knowing good ideas from bad ones – and being able to act on the good ones – that is to conducts the experiments. Entrepreneurs recognise the importance of knowing a good idea from a bad one and, perhaps even more so, the importance of taking the risk – of acting on the good ideas.
Studies dealing with research-based and student entrepreneurship, thus considering the market power of innovative firms created by very young entrepreneurs, would be greatly appreciated.
The study of new firm creation based on university inventions can be leveraged to address one of the most important and vexing questions in knowledge management today: by addressing key disciplinary questions in the context of student entrepreneurial activity, we wish to work on a variety of ways to suggest implications for the study of knowledge creation and transfer. Empirical research using qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods is encouraged. Case studies (single in-depth cases or comparative cases) that are theoretically and empirically grounded are welcome. We will also consider conceptual papers that draw on the existing literature and develop innovative contributions that improve our understanding of the topic. Thus, we are looking for a wide variety of papers that contribute to the creation of a solid evidence base concerning innovation management inside family enterprises.
Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
- Students' entrepreneurial minds: where do entrepreneurial mentalities come from? How do we know whether or not people have entrepreneurial mentalities and how do we know how mentality affects peoples' response to new knowledge and new ideas? Why do students resist new ideas even when they are good ones?
- Student entrepreneurship and global markets: how can young people (such as students) break the rules of the market by defeating more traditional competitors with innovative ideas and new IT-based marketing tools? What is the real market power of student entrepreneurship?
- Social networks and student entrepreneurship: how can higher education best stimulate the creation of firms emanating from young and smart minds in colleges and universities? How are brain circulation and social networking helping young people to disseminate their ideas worldwide?
- Strategies and knowledge assets: firm structure, industrial contexts and performance of student entrepreneurship. How can young people conceive, develop and exchange entrepreneurial ideas at the maximum speed and with the highest financial return? Why are more and more young people deciding to become entrepreneurs? Can the student corporation (that is, a firm entirely composed of young students) always be regarded as a kind of 'knowledge-intensive factory'?
- Cultural differences inside student entrepreneurship: are there any individual and cultural differences in dealing with entrepreneurial ideas? Are there culturally construed ideologies underlying student entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviour? Is there substantial individual variance within a culture? If so, what can be done about it? It calls for a hybrid knowledge-driven economy that offers everyone the chance to compete via a world-class basic education system but also encourages radical innovation by means of an open, liberal and entrepreneurial culture.
- Conceptualisation of a firm-level model of knowledge management: understanding the emergence of virtual corporation among students.
- Cognitive processes and social contexts: creativity vs problem solving approach.
- Organising around the other side of tacit knowing: knowledge types, epistemology, infrastructures.
- The institutions of economic organisation and the knowledge-based view implications on student entrepreneurship.
- Technological change and property rights: core assumptions and paradigm dynamics for student entrepreneurs.
- Science, higher education and mechanism design of research/students' organisations.
Submission deadline (extended abstracts): 31 May, 2012 (by email)
Notification of acceptance (extended abstracts): 15 June 2012
Submission deadline (full paper): 31 August 2012 (online submission)
Notification of acceptance/revisions (full paper): 15 November 2012
Final paper production deadline: 31 December 2012
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