Call for papers: "Coordinating, Collaborating and Co-operating for Innovative Change"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business.
This special issue aims to contribute to the literature on symbiotic entrepreneurship and strategic co-operation oriented to innovative change, by presenting a set of eclectic contributions that are unveiling different dimensions of this complex and still unexplored problematic.

According to Dana et al. (2001), in several industries, both big and small firms are co-operating in international marketing networks and contributing to changing local markets into parts of integrated broader markets. In fact, co-operation pulled by the market leads to the outsourcing of small niche players, from the part of the big players.

The referred market-pull leads to symbiotic arrangements, which involve smaller entrepreneurial units that exploit the possibility of entering into truly global value chains (Etemad et al., 2001; Wright & Dana, 2003). This type of arrangements is critical for defining the strategic alternatives to be faced by small entrepreneurial units since the former contribute to eliminating several constraints related to dimension and lack of minimum efficient scale, that are often faced by the later (Etemad et al., 2001).

Following Wright & Dana (2003), the strategic alternatives facing small entrepreneurial units have experimented dramatic changes and spatial constraints are no longer impossible barriers to surpass. This is fundamentally due to the emergence of a new paradigm, which is characterised by reduced transaction costs and increased managerial complexity that push both big and small entrepreneurial units for implementing multi-prong strategies, in order to deal with distinct scenarios, namely: (i) symbiotic management with an ally in the same network; (ii) competing with a rival in a different network; and (iii) dealing with a different network, and perhaps joining it.

Under the competitive scenario of a multi-polar world economy, and for recovering the debate initiated by Wright & Dana (2003) and Dana et al. (2008), it must be outlined that both entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial units need to (re)think competitive strategies, in order to successfully compete in global markets. This is the fundamental reason to reaching world-class efficiency and, undoubtedly, to achieving the referred efficiency through symbiotic networks.

With the objective of enriching this open debate, three Cs will be appraised, namely: coordination, collaboration and co-operation. Some examples of relevant themes and research questions that might be considered for publication, include, although are not limited to, the following:

• Do institutions act as a lever of innovative change for entrepreneurial units?
• Do coordination mechanisms harm or catalyse innovation and organisational change?
• Does gender influence collaboration practices in the context of co-entrepreneurial couples?
• Does coopetition/symbiotic entrepreneurship play a critical role in fostering the absorptive capacity of entrepreneurial units?
• Do small sized entrepreneurial units act as pacemakers of established large firms?
• Do creative and cultural entrepreneurial units co-operate in different ways from the established ones?
• Do crowd-funding platforms intensify competition or cooperation among entrepreneurial units and users?

We welcome qualitative as well as quantitative and mixed methodologies, as long as they are well grounded in the literature. Please refer to the following articles:

• Dana, L.P.; Etemad, H.; and Wright, R. (2001), 'The Global Reach of Symbiotic Networks', Journal of Euromarketing, 9(2), 2001, pp. 1-16.
• Dana, L.P.; Etemad, H.; and Wright, R. (2008), 'Toward a paradigm of symbiotic entrepreneurship', International Journal of Entrepreneurship & Small Business, Vol. 5(2), 2008, pp. 109-126.
• Etemad, H.; Wright, R.; and Dana, L.P. (2001), 'Symbiotic International Business Networks: Collaboration between Small and Large Firms', Thunderbird International Business Review, 43(4), July-August 2001, pp. 481-494.
• Wright, R. and Dana, L.P. (2003), 'Changing Paradigms of International Entrepreneurship Strategy', Journal of International Entrepreneurship, 1, pp. 135-152.
• Dana, L.P. and Dana, T.E. (2005), 'Expanding the Scope of Methodologies Used in Entrepreneurship Research', International Journal of Entrepreneurship & Small Business, Vol. 2(1), 2005, pp. 79-88.
• Dana, L.P. and Dumez, H. (2015), 'Qualitative Research Revisited: Epistemology of a Comprehensive Approach'. International Journal of Entrepreneurship & Small Business, Vol. 26 (2), October 2015, pp. 154-170. 

We aim to provide an original overview of different dimensions of strategic co-operation considering the role played by institutions and entrepreneurial units with different characteristics, as well as by different types of entrepreneurs. The issue will be organised to provide analyses of international cases, considering the three Cs of coordination, collaboration and co-operation. To achieve this, both qualitative and quantitative applications within these referred dimensions may be considered.

• Institutions and Ecosystems
• Institutions and innovative change
• Co-ordination and organisational change
• Co-entrepreneurship and performance
• Cooperation and innovative capacity
• Cooperation and innovative games
• Open innovation and social innovation
• Collaborative innovation networks
• Crowd-funding and networking businesses

Important Dates
Submission of papers: 15 July, 2017
Notification to authors: 30 September, 2017
Final versions due: 30 November, 2017