The objective of this article was to analyse and to assess the contribution of the IECER conference to entrepreneurship research in Europe. The main results are the following: a high level of selectivity and quality (acceptation ratio, restricted number of paper presentations, etc.), an increasing number of original and new research, a growing European dimension (locations outside Germany, increasing number of countries represented at IECER) and globalisation (number of participants from outside Europe), disciplinary openness (strong interdisciplinary focus, less participants from management science comparing to other conferences), specific focus on the environment and regional issues.
A direct outcome of the IECER conference is a selection of high-quality papers published annually in a separate anthology. These do not appear in a collective IECER series, but are, according to the thematical orientation of the papers included, released by different editors (Dowling et al., 2003; Dowling et al., 2005; Vinig and Van der Voort, 2005; Dowling and Schmude, 2007) or journals (see this special issue of IJESB).
The main contribution of the IECER conference to the European entrepreneurship community is certainly its ‘openness’ as an interdisciplinary research discussion forum, its deliberately small size (emphasising quality and interaction), and its focus on environment-related issues. Additionally, the European dimension is witnessed by organising the IECER conference out of Germany every two years. These specific features differentiate the IECER from most European or international conferences and confirm the attractiveness this entrepreneurship meeting has displayed since its establishment in 2003. The ‘home market effect’ we measured can impact so positively on (a) fostering entrepreneurship research in the host country, and (b) promoting country-specific topics and approaches to complete the rich and diverse picture of entrepreneurship research in Europe.
IECER Conference – five years of entrepreneurship research 171
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Appendix 1
Classifying the focus of entrepreneurship research
Theme 1 Theoretical antecedents, Entrepreneurship Theory: Description of entrepreneurs; personalities, backgrounds, early experiences; behavioural aspects; cognitive process in decision making; entrepreneurial cognition; individual decision making; heuristics adopted by entrepreneurs; level of uncertainty, etc.
Theme 2 Types of entrepreneurs: nascent; novice; habitual; serial; portfolio; founding teams, etc.
Theme 3 Entrepreneurial process: Opportunity recognition and information search; cognitive behaviour; networks related to context and process (social, business, formal networks); resource acquisition and business strategies; resource based theory; resources and assets, etc.
Theme 4 Organisational forms: Corporate venturing, entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship; transfer of ownership (management buy-outs/buy-ins and franchising); inheritance of organisations (family firms), etc.
Theme 5 External environments: Link between environmental conditions and new venture creation/business survival/business closure/performance/competitive strategies of organisations; environmental conditions determining for entrepreneurship, etc.
Theme 6 Outcomes: Firm-level survival/financial performance; performance of entrepreneur and firm exit issues; objective and subjective criteria to measure firm-level growth and performance; influence on outcomes of different types of organisations/entrepreneurs, etc.
Source: Adapted from Ucbasaran et al. (2001)
Appendix 2
The focus of entrepreneurship research in the IECER community – statistics
Year Theme 1 Theme 2 Theme 3 Theme 4 Theme 5 Theme 6 Theme 7 Theme total
2003 1 3 9 0 8 9 0 30 2004 3 3 14 3 10 6 0 39 2005 3 11 33 0 11 9 1 68 2006 4 5 9 2 11 7 2 40 2007 7 2 9 0 19 5 1 43 Total 18 24 74 5 59 36 4 220
6.3 Academic entrepreneurship in knowledge and technology-based industries 89