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Attempting to forecast the future can be dangerous but this episode is all about that and more.
Previously in our series on Entrepreneurship Research, we have explored the history of the field, its dramatic rise, and the variety of research areas that our faculty are currently engaged in… but what about the future? What are the unexplored areas of entrepreneurship research that will draw new scholars from around the world to better understand entrepreneurs and how they impact our economy and society?
There are some common themes you will hear throughout this episode, including how new research might redefine what we know as entrepreneurship today - driven by the emergence of new industries, business models, societal changes, and technological advancements.
The Entrepreneur Podcast is sponsored by Connie Clerici, QS ’08, and Closing the Gap Healthcare Group, Inc.
Transcript
Melissa Firth
Attempting to forecast future can be dangerous. But this episode is all about that. And more. Previously on our series on entrepreneurship research, we have explored the history of the field, its dramatic rise, and the variety of research areas that our faculty are currently engaged in. But what about the future? What are the unexplored areas of entrepreneurship research that will draw new scholars from around the world to better understand entrepreneurs, and how they impact our economy and society. There are some common themes you will hear throughout this episode, including how new research might redefine what we know as entrepreneurship today, driven by the emergence of new industries, business models, societal changes, and technological advancements. We start this exploration with Dr. Daniel Clark, who notes that much of the research literature has focused on the startup phase. And there's much more to the story than those early beginnings.
Daniel Clark
In the early days of entrepreneurship, there were two distinct questions like you know, there was startup and scale up. In the last 10 to 15 years, I would say, the work on startup phase firms versus scale up phase firms with like, five or eight or 10 to one, right, there is so much interest in firms starting and what got people to start firms and the early days of firm emergence. The phase after that has kind of been punted to other literatures; the strategy literature, the management literature. I think, because of the resource constraints and the limitations, the cognitive limitations of entrepreneurs in the organizational limitation of entrepreneurs and the resources limitations of alternative firms, we need to take back a lot of that we need to be get be better at going to the strategy and management literature's finding interesting questions, and finding articulate ways to ask them to an entrepreneurial audience, and, and systematically demonstrate that entrepreneurial firms continuously are different from established firms. And they approach these these problems in different ways. And, and they have a wide variety of outcomes because of that, and I think that's where a lot of is going to go. And I can tell you, from a cognition player's perspective, we know almost nothing about the cognitive dynamics within an operating scale up firm. We have punted all of that, and just basically, assumed it is like a much larger firm, which of course, it's not. And it's certainly not like a brand new firm, where you're you can just say, "it's the entrepreneur stupid." You know, "how was he thinking? What are she thinking or how they operating?" No. You are in a group dynamic, there is a team, a tight tight network of interrelated cognitions. And what we know about that is almost nothing. I mean, it's very, very limited. I mean, the top team cognition literature is tiny.
Melissa Firth
The idea of new models and frameworks go far beyond the lifecycle of enterprises. It also includes the ever expanding cast of industries created by Innovative ventures and technologies. That is the area that excites Dr. Eric Morse.
Eric Morse
Yeah, you know, I think we'll see more development of business models and in the sense of industry specific, so I think we're, we're probably we're already at a point where if you're going into high tech, you're gonna have to consider different attributes of your business model than you would if you're going into, you know, something that's more product, product based, or consumer goods based. How you finance those ventures is different. And I think we're seeing a huge shift in the financing of entrepreneurial ventures with so much private equity out there. You know, the angel investor has always been important, but now we're seeing angel investors, you know, fill in, where we used to have venture capital. So, you know, the finance industry is changing and how we look at entrepreneurs, how we fund entrepreneurs, and I think that's going to continue to evolve for sure. The other piece that I think is really interesting is we've been talking about global entrepreneurship for decades. Tricia McDougal wrote a really interesting piece back in mid 90s I think it was on starting global, and it happened back then. But now we're We're really starting to see at, we're seeing workforces are distributed across the globe and COVID certainly, you know, facilitated that or pushed it ahead. But I think the idea of international and global entrepreneurship, global startup is something that we'll see more and more.
Melissa Firth
Dr. Simon Parker concurs and relate some of his observations from Silicon Valley, where Fintech is leading the way for a whole host of technology, under the banner, Internet of Things,
Simon Parker
understanding more about how platforms and fintech, big data, smart cities, and massive, massive real time data set, all of that I'm bundling into one area where I think as those data begin to become available, there are going to be a whole range of questions around digital interactions, and digital entrepreneurship and financing it, which are going to open up and provide opportunities for entrepreneurship researchers. So I think there's a, there's a huge area around that. And it's, it's diffuse, right. There's a lot of different topics that I've mentioned there. But I'm collecting them together (under) Internet of Things, there's a lot of opportunities for entrepreneurs, and that and therefore there's a lot of opportunities for researchers to study what those entrepreneurs are going to be doing. So I think as we look forward, and we see more AI, more robotics, more use of interconnected network networked, real time, data generating activities, and operations, there's going to be huge amounts of entrepreneurial opportunity and a lot of work to study it.
Melissa Firth
This explosion of innovative technology is not only providing new avenues for growth and value generation, it also holds the key to solving our greatest challenges, as Dr. Laurel Steinfield notes.
Laurel Steinfield
So I think that we're going to see entrepreneurship research, maybe advancing in two different ways. I mean, there's many different ways, but two areas that crossover with my area of of, of expertise and scholarship is the one in understanding how entrepreneurship can be used in is critical to addressing the wicked problems that we face with regards to everything from climate change to obtaining this Sustainable Development Goals addressing poverty, you know, all these dynamics, I think entrepreneurship is going to become a critical element that governments will start to try and support as engines to drive these changes. And I think universities as well as we start to develop courses that are really about understanding how to create social innovations, how to launch and run social enterprises... so really balancing the need to have a positive impact in the world with also the need to to make profits and be sustainable.
Melissa Firth
Dr. Parker agrees.
Simon Parker
The second big area, I think, looking forward, which is really exciting, is about climate change, sustainability, sustainable startups, and ways that entrepreneurs are going to be solving some of these big questions. And I'll give you an example. When I took a group of EMBA students over to San Francisco earlier this year, one of the startups we visited was a green battery startup, the venture had researched and they were now looking to start going into production for a battery that could store charge electric charge, using materials that are very readily available that aren't scarce, and that are reusable. Now, this is one of probably hundreds of similar types of startup, all going on at the same time. So you know, the image that comes to mind is the fruit flies in a petri dish, that there's this buzz of activity, and only a few of the fruit flies are going to make it at the end of the experiment. And the problem for entrepreneurial finance for venture capital is they know that one or two of these technologies is going to win a one or two of these companies are going to win, but they don't know which one. And they all look pretty much the same. And this is what makes the VCs problems so, so difficult, and why so few of their funded portfolio ventures ever actually get seriously into the money. It's just the odds of any particular one that's funded making it and being the winner of these tournaments is just so small. Now, this type of startup is going on at the same time as a lot of ongoing efforts to generate more and more renewable energy, whether that's through wind or solar or tidal, or geothermal or whatever it is. That energy is going to have to be stored That's where the green batteries come in. At the same time as all this, there's all this work going on on hydrogen, and on applications of it, as well, on nuclear fusion, which is getting very close now to generating more power than it's consuming in generating that output, the opportunities here for entrepreneurs to create ventures that drive forward these... use these technologies and drive forward progress on sustainable energy creation has never been more pressing. And it's never been more substantial in terms of the sheer aggregate volume of activity that's going on in this area. And this is going to change very much the nature of entrepreneurship, the type of people that are doing it, and the kinds of impacts that they're making, and how they're going to be interfacing with regulators, with existing firms, with industry, generally. So it's a very exciting and uncertain wave of activity that's going on. And it's it's usually a bit like the first topic set of topics I mentioned that I put under the sort of interconnected Big Data Type heading. This is also very diverse, heterogeneous, it's going to be moving in all sorts of different directions. And I see research opportunities here, not just analyze it as a phenomenon, I want to make that clear that the opportunities for research I see are not just phenomenon driven. But I think also a bit like I mentioned earlier, how social enterprise is qualitatively different and stands on its head, sometimes some of the accepted wisdom that we think we know. So I think with these two areas, it could also change what we think of as "entrepreneurship" in ways that I don't think we are yet able to appraise were yet able to fully anticipate. So I think it's going to change what we think of as enterprise and enterprising behavior. And if that sounds vague, it's it's deliberate, because I really think the we cannot see into the future and we cannot anticipate what what what's going to come forward from come out of all this activity.
Melissa Firth
But the idea of redefining what we know is entrepreneurship is not only being challenged by new industries and technological advancement, as noted in our previous episode, there are a number of scholars looking into more axiological questions, like What is success? Is entrepreneurship only about creating value? Is entrepreneurship always a good thing? Here's Dr. Dominic Lim, on the topic.
Dominic Lim
So in some cases, enterpreneurship can be a lever for these individuals who start a company, right, to improve their life and get to the next level, really, other than enterpreneurship. Right? What is the right way to get from let's say I was born with nothing and then flying private jet. So it's the lever for that social group movement, right? And improvement. But at the same time at the Persia can be used as a way to hamper the social movement as well right, because in some countries, this small strata of people, right small group of people can actually safeguard the information and the access to the resources and then they can keep their all that wealth and value right, among themselves as well. Right. So like, so this is a kind of like an emerging economies versus advanced kind of economies type of thing. Right? So do is enterpreneurship really kind of like tool and the lever for Diversity and Inclusion and Social mobility; or could it be the other way around? Traditionally, we focused on wealth creation and value creation. I mean, we always said value creation, but really, it was about... a lot about creating wealth for the enterpreneur himself/herself and investors and different stakeholders. But more and more, we are thinking about the other side of Entrepreneurship, like you mentioned, right, and this including, like, you know, diversity of enterpreneurs, and so on diversity of the entrepreneurial process, as I briefly mentioned, and the diversity in terms of how we measure the value created by enterpreneurship. Right? And also the cost, right of Entrepreneurship, as well, such as, like, you know, quality of life, work life balance, and psychological well being. And all these things are becoming... or gaining increasing interest from the research in entrepreneurship.
Melissa Firth
Dr. Janice Byrne is also hoping for more scholarship, questioning our current positive assumptions.
Janice Byrne
We live in a world where there is there's not limitless resources, right, like, so this whole growth thing, you know, has a limit to it. And if we're just gonna pursue and that's what entrepreneurship is all we you know, we always see this stuff about, you know, build it, scale it, grow it, blah, blah, blah, we're okay? Where's that bringing us? Is that really where we want to go? And it doesn't always have to be under, like, if we, if we do recognize that, you know, entrepreneurship can bring social value. Yeah, it can also bring personal value. And it doesn't always have to be about making things bigger. And we should come back to this notion of it being by maybe using resources in different ways. So like the circular economy, these different ideas about how we need to get on to more entrepreneurs in green technologies. And in the circular economy, we this is where we need to focus our efforts on understanding, because this is ultimately what's going to help us. The world is going to be fine, probably, but whether we're going to survive is a different question. So I would like it to do that.
Melissa Firth
But it's not merely about systems and the larger picture, these problems can also be very personal.
Janice Byrne
I think I'd like to see research that looks a bit more at the darker side of it because you know, and again, this is linked to the whole, the way we talk about entrepreneurship, you know, the long hours and the hustling and grit and the you know, you got to be prepared, we burn the midnight oil and all that stuff. Look at the implications this has for people? Look at the implications it has for their quality of life, how much they're sleeping, how their health is, how their interactions with their family, in relations with their spouses and kids are? Because if we buy into this kind of all consuming, resilient and gritty entrepreneur, we buy into that idea. It has implications for our personal well being and our personal lives, and relationships. And I think I'd like to see a little bit more about that, because there are so many burnt out, exhausted, unhappy entrepreneurs out there. And we need to stop romanticizing it. We need to expose it warts and all. And I think I'd like to see a little bit more of that.
Melissa Firth
Theoretical frameworks, and what we choose to research is often a reflection of the times. As scholarship around the intersection of gender, ethnicity, age and class have come to the fore in other fields, its emergence in the fields of entrepreneurship is to be expected. Here's Dr. Steinfield's observations.
Laurel Steinfield
The other area where I think we'll see more scholarship growing is actually theories and papers that shift away from the very traditional dominant discourse, which, as any critical scholar will tell you has typically been ones that reflect the origins of entrepreneurship theory as something that's very androcentric or masculine. And something that typically comes from Western perspectives. And so I think we are going to potentially see things that understand the ways that entrepreneurship is run by non white people and by non males and understanding also the in the, the nuances that they bring to how they do entrepreneurship. And I think the other area is and I don't want to throw jargons or, or buzzwords, but I do think there is a big movement to understand how entrepreneurship can occur in a way that is not a reflection of colonialism. And by that I mean kind of this desire to own property and this desire to reinforce was kind of ownership or competitiveness, but really one that is perhaps one of a decolonial eyes approach, which really starts to encourage people to see each other more in relationship ways and understand the way that entrepreneurship can be used to help each other and, and really bridge. Society brings society together and not just being people centric, but also understanding the way that our actions affect the environment and affect kind of non non human species, right. And so I think that there is going to be this understanding and broadening of entrepreneurship to account for more ways of seeing the world, and new theories and new theoretical perspectives that are grounded in different approaches to life in general.
Melissa Firth
And there is much to be said in how our modern perceptions of entrepreneurship are linked to specific Western ideas and values. Dr. Larry Plummer shares his thoughts on this topic.
Larry Plummer
So it's not exclusively in American thing. There's actually a pretty famous paper about the Protestant work ethic. So Alfred (Max) Weber's work on the Protestant Ethic but tied directly to the study of entrepreneurship. There's a paper that says, you know, Calvinists believed that their financial success was a sign of God's providence. And so therefore, the premise that being an entrepreneur, and being a successful entrepreneur is a sign of what God's providence I've already said, it is really interesting. So that does connect. So if you do have the Protestant Ethic, which is a very new way, I mean, I'm, in terms of my heritage, I'm pure New England. So my ancestors would have all been, you know, traders and merchants and you know, having some kind of trade that they're going to be doing, because that would have been totally normal. So, I do think it has a very strong American connection, but I think it's because it's a largely Western European kind of cultural thing. I don't think it's necessarily exclusive. So for example, one of the most entrepreneurial countries in the world is Sweden, of all places. And I have colleagues and friends who are professors of entrepreneurship all over Sweden, they have outstanding business schools, they have an outstanding entrepreneurial community. And it's just not a place where people are thinking, "Oh, Sweden surely surely makes sense that Sweden would be very entrepreneurial in it," but it is. I don't know if that's because there is a robust public, you know, social welfare, public welfare kind of programs, there's certainly healthcare that's available, you will often hear American entrepreneurs talking about one of the barriers for them wanting to be an entrepreneur is a lot of times now healthcare is so expensive, the United States that it's actually preferable for some people to stay on board (with) their employer just for the sole reason that they need to be able to provide health insurance to their families. And of course, Canada doesn't we don't have that limitation, because we've got, we've got single payer system for health care. So yes, it's correlated with with the American economy. But it's not exclusively an American thing, is what I would describe it as,
Melissa Firth
Therefore, the contingent values arising from different cultures can severely shape what the future of entrepreneurship looks like. Here's a few key differences that Dr. Byrne has gleaned from our interactions with indigenous entrepreneurs.
Janice Byrne
That's when you you can often see real resourcefulness, right. But it's also where you see, I mean, there's an indigenous woman entrepreneur, who I've worked with previously, who really stressed you know, she, she was kicking back against... pushing back and this whole notion of like, networking and not liking the instrumentality of networking and what you were there for, why you were doing it. And she was like, for her, it was about community. It wasn't about network, it was about community. And in other words, that means that changes your mindset, right? That means you're showing up at a place or space, not with an instrumental kind of what am I going to get out of this idea? And nor or not? And that's not to say that everybody turns up those things with that instrumentalist view. Some also do just want want to give right? But her idea that community was really like this notion of what can I contribute here that's going to make things better for everybody, right? So it's not it's going beyond exchange and instrumentality, it's going beyond altruism and giving for the goodness and helping one individual. It's about community and building community and constructing something that's bigger and better or not bigger, but definitely better and... for everyone, and that for me really struck me in terms of understanding what an indigenous approach and knowledge can bring to entrepreneurship.
Melissa Firth
Similarly, the emerging economies in Africa will also have a large say in what entrepreneurship might look like in the coming decades. Dr. Steinfield's work across a number of countries in Africa, has given her a glimpse of some of these qualities.
Laurel Steinfield
South Africa, to me has always been where I learned about social enterprises. And it was really a hub for social enterprises. And it's a different way of doing business that reflects kind of this mindset that South Africans, some South Africans have of needing to be able to give back and to their communities and raise up their communities, while also ensuring they're sustainable and making a profit. And so I think that is one thing that we'll probably start to see more and more and more of, as we'll see different models roll out as as entrepreneurship in that area grows. But I also think that we're going to have to severely think about how we engage entrepreneurs in a way that doesn't see... equate entrepreneurship with always constant growth and high growth, and reflect that the way that entrepreneurship might unfold in Africa, is likely different. And in fact, some of the things that we see is, as an example, rather than growing a single business to be bigger, they typically end up doing what is called a portfolio approach, where they'll actually add a number of different businesses to try and diversify their business base, right? And so it's it is in some ways, growth, but it's horizontal growth. And then you have other ways that they that we look at what they're doing, we're like, Well, why are they doing that? Why are... if you ever go to a marketplace in in a in an area in Africa, you will often see many fruit vendors all selling the same things in the same area. And you're kind of wondering, well, why are they imitating each other, right, and there is something there with reducing risk, but also the importance of relationships. And so it is a shift away from our perspective of entrepreneurship, being constant about constantly about growth, to entrepreneurship, about every day livelihoods, and just ensuring that you can make ends meet and actually provide for your family, and that you reinvest the profits from your business into your family for future generations. And that, then I think, also that means that we'll have to rethink how we think about financing these enterprises. If these enterprises are reinvesting their profits, not always in growth, but actually in their family needs, then you have to have very flexible forms of financing that allows for that to happen, particularly when, for example, school fees are due or when funerals happen. And we're family events like that happen. You have to enable these entrepreneurs to to access their funds in a more flexible way so that they can use the funds when they need it for their family and then reinvested in their businesses when the family dynamics are more imbalanced and more kind of even keeled. So I think there is a need to not only understand the way the entrepreneurship will manifest, but also the way that we then have to change marketplace structures to actually support those entrepreneurs in the way that they live their lives. So rather than trying to fit them into the way we expect them to operate, we need to understand first the way they operate and then create products that actually support this dynamic.
Melissa Firth
But the future of entrepreneurship research is not simply about looking ahead or horizontally. Some of it is emerging from more ancient roots.
Larry Plummer
So religion and entrepreneurship is now a major area of study, you know, because it's, there's a really great book that I just read, called Wanamaker Temple (by Nicole C. Kirk) want to make her was an entrepreneur and end of evangelical. Living in the Philadelphia area, anybody who's listening to this, who knows the Philadelphia area knows that Wanamaker was a major department store, the building is still there. And inside the building, this large, large building that he built in the core of the building was a large Oregon for for for religious services that he would have inside the store on Sundays. You know, so the connection between religion and entrepreneurship is really interesting. The Protestant Ethic, of course, is one in which, again, talking about your your entrepreneurial success is a sign of God's providence. Now, when I was at in Oklahoma, where a lot of students would be particularly evangelical, and particularly have strong Christian faith, where they would struggle is in interpreting... their interpretation of things like the stories of Jesus flipping the tables of the money changers at the temple and the question is you know how to interpret that? One interpretation is that he was not happy that the exchange was being done in the temple. So you know, this is a place of worship, not a place for commerce. Okay, that's one interpretation. Another interpretation is a push against, you know, charging interest. So the sin of usury, but the last one, which is the one that a lot of my thoughtful students would particularly is, would would try to struggle with is, is it a sign of a conflict in terms of just commerce in general is being an entrepreneur, somehow not consistent with my Christian beliefs? And then the last point is that's really interesting is starting to understand, you know, in the Jewish faith, for example, the Talmudic law there, the Talmud has an entire list of, of rules for businesses, the encouragement of being in a trade that the trade that you're involved in, be clean, that it be a trade that you can then teach to your your progeny that you can teach to your children and so on, and that your transactions and you conduct your business in a way that's honest and fair. And, you know, I mean, these they're very clear rules. So this idea that there is a general connection between religion and faith and entrepreneurship is in itself a new area of research that's definitely on the rise. It's something that's very interesting to talk about.
Melissa Firth
Whether pulling from the past or engaging with current trends, the future of the field looks to be diverse and exciting. With more and more young scholars from around the world entering these discussions, there's no predicting how the field will grow, and continue to inform academics, policymakers, and entrepreneurs on what we can all agree is a fascinating phenomenon. Thank you for joining us for this special series on the entrepreneur podcast. This has been Melissa Firth from the Morisset Institute for Entrepreneurship, powered by Ivey.
Eric Morse
The Entrepreneur Podcast is sponsored by Quantumshift 2008 alum Connie Clerici and Closing the Gap Healthcare Group. To ensure you never miss an episode subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player or visit entrepreneurship.uwo.ca/podcast Thank you so much for listening. Until next time.