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
Re-thinking Academic Entrepreneurship: Micro, Macro, and Meso Perspectives
Submission deadline: August 9, 2024
2020 was the 40th anniversary of the Bayh-Dole and Stevenson-Wydler Acts in the U.S., which induced universities and federal/national labs to become more engaged in the commercialization of science. These legislative acts also led to the establishment of technology transfer offices at universities and federal/national labs (Link, Siegel, and Van Fleet, 2011) and a concomitant rise in patenting, licensing, and startup creation by scientists worldwide. The 1980 Bayh-Dole Act has also influenced global policies regarding university technology transfer, as well as inspired legislative reforms in both developed countries (e.g., China, Japan, South Korea, U.K., Europe) and developing countries (e.g., Brazil, Colombia, Chile, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Russia, and South Africa-see Siegel and Wright, 2007).
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”.
To support legislation, there has been substantial public investment in programs to support academic entrepreneurship (e.g., the Small Business Technology Transfer Program (STTR) in the U.S., various state level technology innovation public investment programs, and diverse national and regional support programs in the E.U., Singapore, Korea, and Taiwan), student-entrepreneurship, and property-based institutions, such as incubators/accelerators and science/technology parks on campus and surrounding regions, as well as state-level programs to attract “star scientists” who actively engage in academic entrepreneurship (e.g., the Georgia Research Alliance https://gra.org/).
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).
It is also important to note that innovation and entrepreneurship occur within an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Some key agents, institutions, and initiatives defining entrepreneurial ecosystems on campus (and in surrounding regions of the campus) include faculty, post-docs, students, alumni, technology transfer offices, science and technology parks, incubators/ accelerators, venture capitalists and angel investors, alumni commercialization funds, and numerous entrepreneurship programs and centers on campus. These systems have expanded greatly over the past forty years. Thus, the rise of academic entrepreneurship has both important managerial and public policy implications at multiple levels of analysis.
In the full Call for Papers, are four sets of research questions regarding the managerial and public policy implications of academic entrepreneurship that could be explored in the special issue. These questions are informed by Markman et al. (2008), who identified three key aspects of the commercialization of science: individual, organizational, and institutional/societal dimensions.
Strategic Entrepreneurship in Craft-Based Ventures
Anticipated Publication: September 2024
Compared to the impressive contributions of craft-based ventures to society, our knowledge of SE in craft-based ventures is very limited. As such, the purpose of this special issue is to extend our understanding of how craft-based ventures conduct SE. That is, how, if at all, they combine “both effectiveness and efficiency-oriented forms of newness” to explore tomorrow’s opportunities while exploiting today’s competitive advantages (Ireland & Webb, 2007: 52). And indeed, there are a number of unexplored or underexplored areas of research at the intersection of SE and craft-based economy that can illuminate our understanding of entrepreneurship and strategic management in craft-based ventures (Shepherd, Wennberg, Suddaby & Wiklund, 2019). For example, with the rapid advance of internet technologies and platform economies, craft-based ventures that had to traditionally rely exclusively on local consumers received sudden access to world markets. This has led to the increasing internationalization of craft-based ventures which now face unique opportunities and challenges as a result (e.g., Sasaki, Nummela, & Ravasi, 2021). These advances appeared to have played an important role in the survival of particular craft skills and associated ventures that had been on the brink of extinction. Another example is our lack of knowledge of the interplay between family dynamics and craft philosophy in craft-based ventures, which appears relevant as many craft-based products and services result from the lasting and dedicated work of generations of families that traditionally have substantially contributed to local economies (Hoskisson, Chirico, Zyung & Gambeta, 2017). Yet, apart from a few recent exceptions (e.g., Erdogan, Rondi, & De Massis, 2020; Sasaki, Ravasi, & Micelotta, 2019; Thurnell-Read, 2021; Ruef, 2020), there has been little cross-fertilization between craft-based research and the family firm literature (cf. Suddaby & Jaskiewicz, 2020). Other underexplored areas include, among others, the interplay between craft and tradition in the construction of authenticity, the interplay between craft and innovation in the context of the rise of artificial intelligence (cf. Murray, Rhymer, Sirmon, forthcoming), craft-approaches to engaging with various stakeholders (cf. Hitt et al., 2011; Murray, Kotha, & Fisher, forthcoming), the more general evolution of craft-based ventures, as well as the role of craft forms of strategic entrepreneurship in the informal/illegal economy.
Business Model Innovation Design: Deploying Strategic Entrepreneurship to Address Grand Challenges
Anticipated Publication: March 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.
Uncertainty and Competing Goals: Advancing Behavioral Theories of Entrepreneurial Processes and OutcomesBusiness Model Innovation Design: Deploying Strategic Entrepreneurship to Address Grand Challenges
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).
Published Past Special Issues
- Reframing Social Entrepreneurship Research: Embracing a Strategic Perspective
- Women and Under-Represented Minorities in High-Growth Entrepreneurship in the US: Challenges and Opportunities
- Catalyzing Change and Innovation in Women’s Entrepreneurship
- Advancing Strategic Entrepreneurship Research through Meta-analysis
- Policy for Innovative Entrepreneurship
- Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies
- Organizational Design of Entrepreneurial Ventures
- Historical Approaches to Entrepreneurship Research: Investigating Context, Time, and Change in Entrepreneurial Processes
- Entrepreneurship and Open Innovation
- Enduring Entrepreneurship
- Call for Special Issue Proposal Submissions
- Theories of Entrepreneurship
- Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies
- Business Models
- Entrepreneurship and Strategy in Informal Economy
- Entrepreneurship in the Public Interest
- Technology Entrepreneurship
- Strategic Entrepreneurship in Family Business
- International Entrepreneurship: Managerial and Public Policy Implications

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