Open Workshop: Reflecting on 25 Years of Research on Entrepreneurship Processes
The aim of the Open Workshop Series in Business and Management Studies is to promote top-quality academic and applied research in various fields of the social sciences. This is a unique opportunity for sharing knowledge and networking with local and international community members.
Speakers: Prof. Dr. Aard Groen and Dr. Olga Belousova, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
Reflecting on 25 years of research on entrepreneurship processes using 4S framework inspired by Social Systems Theory, we will present and discuss this framework from both theory-building and practice-oriented standpoints.
First, we will provide an overview of key findings and explore possibilities for future research across five areas: 1) Support systems for innovation and entrepreneurship; 2) Design of entrepreneurship education; 3) Development of knowledge-intensive startups; 4) Assessment of university-industry or inter-industry collaborations; 5) Multilevel process models. Much of this research was conducted through fieldwork where we actively created a living lab serving both as a testbed for our studies and as a support system, benefiting hundreds of entrepreneurs in the early stages of their ventures.
Second, we will present an ongoing in-depth longitudinal case study that utilizes the 4S framework to develop a process model of disadvantaged entrepreneurs' origins and co-development of entrepreneurship capabilities. The session will therefore offer the opportunity to discuss theory development, research methodologies, and the broader impact of researching entrepreneurship.
Prof. Olga Belousova PhD
Assistant Professor, University of Groningen
Visiting scholar, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology
Olga is an experienced trainer and coach in entrepreneurship. She has worked in the field since 2007, when she started her industry PhD with Solvay group in Belgium. From studying corporate entrepreneurial processes in her PhD, Olga continued “walking the talk” at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, where she stood at the origins of the Center of Entrepreneurship and a business accelerator VentureLab North. She is currently studying entrepreneurial processes in both, corporate settings and healthcare and biotech fields. She is also very interested in how students, citizens, entrepreneurs, and employees within larger organizations develop and implement their entrepreneurial mindset.
Olga has been working with LM Thapar Business School and Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology since 2015, focusing on embedding entrepreneurship education in the engineering curriculum.
Prof. Dr. Aard Groen
Professor of Entrepreneurship & Valorization, University of Groningen
Visiting professor at Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala, India
Aard Groen is a Professor and advisor to the board of the University of Groningen on matters of entrepreneurship and valorisation. He was Dean of entrepreneurship at the University of Groningen (2014-2021). Co-founder and director of the University of Groningen Centre of Entrepreneurship. Until the beginning of 2020, Groen also held a full professor position on Innovative Entrepreneurship at the University of Twente, he was in 2001 co-founder and director of NIKOS Centre of entrepreneurship at the University of Twente.
Groen’s research focuses on knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship looking at growth differentials in start-ups, SME’s and corporate entrepreneurship processes in existing businesses across a range of advanced technology sectors, he uses multiple methods, and supervised since 2004 over 35 PhD students in this area. Since 2010 he started working on social entrepreneurship. From a theory perspective interest has been throughout his career as an academic in system theory, inspired by classical work of Talcott Parsons looking into multi-dimensionality and multi-level effects in entrepreneurial processes. Recently looking into the dynamics (the weak point of structural functionalism) e.g. by further developing punctuated equilibrium system theory. With this background, RBV (a highly cited paper in the Journal of Management) and competence-based dynamic capability theory got his attention. Dr. Groen has written extensively on developing tech start-up and enterprise, scale businesses by leveraging industrial and international networks. He served as associate editor of Technovation and was editor of several special issues (for his publications, see here).
He has led many (international) projects on entrepreneurship and developed several methods for incubation and acceleration of business development and High Tech Development (which supported over 1000 startups and SME’s) and co-organized for many years the High-Tech Small Firm Conference. He leads the development of many entrepreneurship education programes for all levels of students and long-life learning-oriented programmes.
Discussion moderated by Prof. Arnis Sauka.
Attendance is free of charge.
Please sign up for the seminar, by writing to arnis.sauka@sseriga.edu by January 15, 2025.
The aim of the SSE Riga Open Workshop Series is to:
- Foster cooperation between business and management researchers, practitioners and policymakers, as well as
- Promote academic and applied research in various fields of the social sciences, focusing on but not limited to entrepreneurship, marketing, management, public administration, and strategy.
Organised by Professor Arnis Sauka, the Centre for Sustainable Business at SSE Riga