SEJ Special Issues
Special Issues are an important part of the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal (SEJ). Special Issues primarily focus on a single topic of relevance to the entrepreneurship field and have the potential of opening new ground for further research.
Email the SEJ Editorial Office at sej@strategicmanagement.net to inquire about submitting a Special Issue proposal.
All Special Issue manuscripts considered for submission must be sent to SEJ's online submission site. For information as to the form of submission, including style and other submission guidelines, please click here.
CURRENT SPECIAL ISSUES
Entrepreneurship and Strategic Learning: Bayesian Theorizing and Experimentation in Entrepreneurial Decision Making
Submission Deadline: October 1, 2025
Anticipated Publication: December 2026
In today’s complex and rapidly evolving entrepreneurial landscape, decision-making under uncertainty has emerged as a central challenge. The Bayesian perspective offers a compelling framework by emphasizing the role of prior beliefs, systematic experimentation, and iterative learning Agrawal, Camuffo, Gambardella, Gans, Scott, Stern, 2025; Zellweger & Zenger, 2023). Recent work has further demonstrated how enabling entrepreneurial choice can be rigorously analyzed through such frameworks (Gans, Stern & Wu, 2019; Agrawal, Gans, & Stern, 2021), while insights from behavioral economics have significantly contributed to our understanding of the roots of entrepreneurship (Åstebro et al., 2014). Moreover, research on uncertainty transitions in entrepreneurial processes underscores the importance of precise characterization of uncertainty types in decision-making (Packard, Clark, & Klein, 2017). Empirical studies using a scientific approach to entrepreneurial decision-making have provided robust evidence from randomized control trials and large-scale replications (Camuffo et al., 2024a), and theory-driven work has clarified the strategic bases of such decisions (Felin & Zenger, 2009; Camuffo, Gambardella, & Pignataro, 2024b). This special issue aims to reorient our understanding of entrepreneurial strategy by examining how Bayesian methods can inform theory, guide empirical research, and enhance the practice of strategic learning (Murray & Tripsas, 2004; Kerr et al., 2014; Thomke, 2020).
Strategic Landscapes: The Entrepreneurial Nexus of Geography and Technology
Submission Deadline: March 30, 2026
Anticipated Publication: Spring 2028
The interaction between geography and technology has been a key topic for researchers from diverse disciplines, who have studied whether and how geographic industrial clusters emerge. Geographic clusters, that is, concentrations of interconnected firms and institutions within a region, have long been studied for their persistence and the benefits they provide to firms. Early research attributes their development to localized knowledge spillovers (Audretsch & Feldman, 1996; Shaver & Flyer, 2000), entrepreneurial anchor firms (Feldman, Francis & Bercovitz, 2005), and startups’ path-dependent location choices (Klepper, 2007; Sorenson & Audia, 2000). Scholars have traced clusters’ origins to social initiatives (Thompson, Purdy & Ventresca, 2018) and industrial innovations (Sohn, Seamans & Sands, 2024), thereby incorporating a dynamic view of clusters (Clayton Feldman & Montmartin, 2024; Kim, Shaver & Funk, 2022; Martin & Sunley, 2011).
Parallel literature has examined how technologies originate and scale to create nascent industries. Seminal studies have viewed industry growth based on the increase in the number of firms (Agarwal & Bayus, 2002; Gort & Klepper, 1982), the proliferation of designs (Anderson & Tushman, 1990; Benner & Tripsas, 2012), and aligned ecosystems (Adner & Kapoor, 2016). Central to these trends is the reduction of technological uncertainty as a precursor for industry emergence, which needs to be accompanied by the interdependent development of demand, ecosystem, and institutional knowledge over the course of an industry’s life cycle (Moeen, Agarwal & Shah, 2020). Studies of nascent industries have pointed out the role of collective experimentation and knowledge exchange across heterogenous actors (Agarwal et al., 2025), although they have largely overlooked the concurrent geographic dynamics that shape these interactions within and across regions.
Recognizing the importance of the relationship between geography and technology, this special issue aims to foster dialogue among scholars and generate an opportunity to think about the complex interdependence in the emergence, resilience, and restructuring of geographies and technologies.
The Strategic Role of Entrepreneurship in Addressing Grand Challenges
Submission Deadline: May 1, 2026
Anticipated Publication: Spring 2028
The world is facing persistent challenges stemming from widespread poverty (Barkema, et al., 2024; Prado, Robinson, & Shapira, 2022) and income disparity (Todorov & Angelova, 2023), increased legal and illegal migration (Zehfuss & Vaughan-Williams, 2024), global climate change and climate change-induced natural disasters (Mohan & Morris, 2024; Park & Samples, 2024), clean water scarcity (Kistruck & Shulist, 2021; Kistruck & Shantz, 2022; Xie, Li & Zhou,2023), and uncertainty resulting from artificial intelligence (AI), the possible effects of which are only beginning to be realized (Simsek et al., 2024; Towsend & Hunt, 2019). Furthermore, these challenges are interconnected and multidimensional, which makes them even more difficult to address (George et al., 2021). Few, if any, works have addressed the interconnectedness of these Grand Challenges. Indeed, for example, climate change may trigger and amplify poverty and migration. AI, for another example, has the possibility of helping alleviate poverty and addressing climate change whereas AI itself uses significant amounts of energy and water to run, which may contribute to climate change.
Large corporations, governments and public-private partnerships (PPPs), that possess significant amounts of resources, have been interested in these issues to the extent they directly affect operations or important stakeholders (Corbett & Montgomery, 2017; Ketchen et al., 2007). However, long-lasting solutions have not been attained from these sources (Bradley et al., 2021). That is why this special issue is focused on entrepreneurship as an important additional means to address these issues. Entrepreneurship is generative and it looks at challenges as opportunities to create new sources of value (Alvarez & Barney, 2007, 2008; Wright & Hitt, 2017). Entrepreneurs can embrace a Grand Challenge and view it with a perspective different from large corporations, governments and PPPs, which can potentially generate new ways and means to address the challenge. Of course, capturing value when addressing any societal challenge is a major challenge and not widely understood, which is also a reason why governments and big corporations are not well poised to offer long-lasting solutions. Consequently, entrepreneurship offers an additional perspective on addressing Grand Challenges.
Past Special Issues Awaiting Publication
Framing Novelty: A Linguistic Approach To The Understanding Of Entrepreneurship, Creativity, And Innovation
Anticipated Publication: December 2026
Despite continuing progress in uncovering the importance of language in shaping the innovation journey, more research is needed to deepen our understanding of how to decode it and to understand when it hinders or helps people and organizations in generating, recognizing, and legitimating novel ideas, products, business models, projects, or processes. The purpose of this Special Issue, therefore, is to advance theory by integrating work from a variety of different perspectives and levels of analysis. We look forward to papers whose theoretical perspectives, methodological contributions, and empirical findings significantly advance the scientific debate and allow for comparing practices across different empirical settings.
Uncertainty and Competing Goals: Advancing Behavioral Theories of Entrepreneurial Processes and Outcomes Business Model Innovation Design
Anticipated Publication: June 2025
The aim of this Special issue is to encourage scholars to advance new theoretical and empirical insights about entrepreneurial decision-making processes and outcomes in complex environments under conditions of uncertainty and competing goals. Accordingly, a wide repertoire of behavioral theories should be considered to further develop and enrich current understanding of entrepreneurial processes and outcomes. For instance, the mixed gamble concept has recently emerged as a powerful lens to explicate complex decisions in contexts that are hard to make sense of and decide upon (e.g., Bromiley, 2009, 2010; Gómez-Mejía et al., 2014; Hoskisson et al., 2017; Nalick et al., 2020). Also, the concept of Knightian uncertainty has been used to address situations in which neither outcomes nor their probabilities can be estimated ex ante (Arikan et al., 2020; Alvarez and Barney, 2007; Knight, 1921). Real options theory is another theoretical tool for helping managers and entrepreneurs deal with decision-making under uncertainty to enhance strategic flexibility (McGrath, 1997; McGrath & MacMillan, 2000; Bowman & Moskowitz, 2001). There has also been research dealing with how biases might distort the rationality of the real options decision approach (Coff & Laverty, 2001; Miller & Shapira, 2003; Adner & Levanthal, 2004). Additionally, scholars rooted in the tradition of the behavioral theory of the firms have started to examine how interrelated and conflicting goals are prioritized and resolved (Gaba & Greve, 2019). Unfortunately, however, these concepts and related models of uncertainty and competing goals have not received adequate attention in the entrepreneurship literature. Moreover, we encourage scholars to use cognitive mental models, such as the “small world representation” (SWR)’ concept that is gaining traction in the behavioral strategy and entrepreneurship literatures (e.g., Feduzi et al, 2021: Csaszar & Levinthal, 2016; Packard et al., 2017).
Business Model Innovation Design: Deploying Strategic Entrepreneurship to Address Grand Challenges
Anticipated Publication: September 2025
To address grand challenges, strategic entrepreneurship initiatives such as business model innovation at the base of the pyramid or new social ventures with innovative business model designs may be deployed. Well-designed governmental policies complement and promote such purposeful entrepreneurship and innovation; however, they do not substitute for them. Given the relevance and timeliness of the topic, and the lack of research at the intersection of business model design, innovation, strategic entrepreneurship, governmental policies and grand challenges, we are launching a Special Issue entitled Business Model Innovation Design: Deploying Strategic Entrepreneurship to Address Grand Challenges.
Entrepreneurial Decisions in the Digital Age
Anticipated Publication: December 2025
The present digital age is characterized by the rapid shift from a traditional economy established by the Industrial Revolution to an economy based on digital technologies (Giustiziero et al. 2021). Many economic activities now take place digitally and a vast amount of information and data are made widely available by digital technologies (Karhade and Dong 2021a). Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial organizations increasingly employ new organizations, organizational designs and business models based on new digital technologies such as AI and digital platforms (Kretschmer and Khashabi, 2020; Oehmichen et al. 2022). The new organizing principles they engender (e.g., data-driven decision making and meta-organizational forms) (Cennamo et al. 2020; Kretschmer et al. 2022) can likewise empower entrepreneurial activities and decisions originating from entrepreneurs’ subjective judgment (Foss and Klein, 2012).
Interestingly, digital technologies may become tools that reduce information asymmetries and consequently moral hazard between stakeholders and entrepreneurs (Chakravarty et al. 2021), unlocking innovation potential (Karhade and Dong 2021b). However, digital technologies can also constrain innovation and entrepreneurial initiatives towards specific paths. For instance, digital platforms leverage their extensive API tools, interfaces, add-ons and governance rules to shape the innovation effort and activities of their ecosystem participants towards directions that are aligned with the platform firm’s strategic objectives (Cennamo 2021; Jacobides et al. 2018), constraining what these actors can do. There is a need to extend our understanding about how new technological resources (e.g., AI and digital platforms) adopted within the organization and/or leveraged through other organizations affect the quality and scope of entrepreneurial decisions.
Re-thinking Academic Entrepreneurship: Micro, Macro, and Meso Perspectives
Anticipated Publication: June 2026
Scientists who engage in such activities are now referred to as “academic entrepreneurs” and entrepreneurial programs and initiatives have grown exponentially on campus and in surrounding regions of the university or federal/national lab. At the same time, more attention has recently been paid to students and alumni who set up their own ventures, referred to as student and alumni entrepreneurship, and which belong to the broader umbrella term of “academic entrepreneurship”.
A key policy issue relating to academic entrepreneurship is ownership of intellectual property arising from government-funded research at universities and federal/national labs, such as patents (the Bayh-Dole approach in the U.S.), and whether universities own such patents (the Bayh-Dole approach) or inventors own them (the “Professor’s Privilege” in Sweden -see Hvide and Jones, 2018 or in Germany - see Cunningham et al., 2019). Also, policymakers, intergovernmental actors, academics, and practitioners view academic entrepreneurs as key agents in addressing “grand societal challenges,” such as climate change and sustainability, improving physical and human infrastructure, reducing poverty and inequality, and health care (e.g., George et al., 2016; De Silva et al., 2021).
Published Past Special Issues
- Strategic Entrepreneurship in Craft‐Based Ventures
- Leading the Digital Transformation of Incumbent Firms
- Reframing Social Entrepreneurship Research: Embracing a Strategic Perspective
- Catalyzing Change and Innovation in Women’s Entrepreneurship
- Advancing Strategic Entrepreneurship Research through Meta-analysis
- Policy for Innovative Entrepreneurship
- Emerging Market Entrepreneurship
- Organizational Design of Entrepreneurial Ventures
- Historical Approaches to Entrepreneurship Research: Investigating Context, Time, and Change in Entrepreneurial Processes
- Entrepreneurship and Open Innovation
- Enduring Entrepreneurship
- Theories of Entrepreneurship
- Business Models
- Entrepreneurship and Strategy in Informal Economy
- Entrepreneurship in the Public Interest
- Technology Entrepreneurship
- Strategic Entrepreneurship in Family Business
SEJ Online Journal Access
SMS Journals are published in partnership with Wiley, and articles can be found on the Wiley Online Library. SMS Members receive complimentary access to all SMS Journal articles.