The Mini Tracks at ECIE
- Entrepreneurship Education and Learning
- Entrepreneurial Operations for Real Estate Investment
- Creativity and Entrepreneurship
- Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Emerging Technologies in the Never Normal Context
- Design Thinking for Business Innovation and Entrepreneurship
- Enhanced Innovation for Better Living
- Pedagogical Innovations in Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship Education and Learning
Mini Track Chairs: Dr. Alexandros Kakouris, Prof Nikolaos Apostolopoulos, Prof Andreas Walmsley and Dr Birgitte Wraae
ECIE 2023 Mini Track on Entrepreneurship Education and Learning
This mini track will focus on entrepreneurship education, a field of significant growth in entrepreneurship research. The track seeks to draw upon global perspectives for entrepreneurship education, in particular considering the interdisciplinary nature this education provides. After an initial period of fostering the entrepreneurial mindset, entrepreneurship education is now able to widen this focus to include research on innovative teaching methodologies, the implementation of such strategies as well as the outcomes and coherent assessment techniques associated with such strategies. Entrepreneurship education can be provided in a wide range of scenarios from formal academic settings to informal events; typical classrooms to incubators, technology parks and summer academies and more. At the same time, a large variety in content and methods is observed without a unanimous teaching model. Moreover, recent trends show the importance of linking entrepreneurship education with sustainable development and social challenges. This mini-track aims to bring academics and practitioners from different entrepreneurship education settings in a common discourse regarding the pedagogy of entrepreneurial education and the observed learning outcomes.
Suggested topics include but are not limited to:
- Innovative teaching methods in entrepreneurship education
- Entrepreneurial pedagogies in connection with learning
- Informal versus formal entrepreneurial teaching
- Entrepreneurship education, sustainable development and social challenges
- Entrepreneurial learning environments
- Mapping the impact of entrepreneurship education
- Perspectives of educational policies for entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurial Operations for Real Estate Investment
Mini Track Chair: Dr. Nasser Abouzakhar, Director, Anzar Property Investors Limited, UK
ECIE 2023 Mini Track on Entrepreneurial Operations for Real Estate Investment
Recent changes in the real estate market and lending costs such as interest rates can have an impact on property investors and entrepreneurs. Those changes present new challenges and opportunities for entrepreneurs to establish their real estate businesses. Entrepreneurs have to raise funds for their investment activities to benefit from available deals and receive the expected revenues, and capital appreciation. However, they need to carry out different activities and operations such as managing their business accounts and property tenants and managing business tools and systems. Real estate investment requires proper planning and a good understanding of the risks and challenges of a property business. Therefore, entrepreneurs have to acquire the necessary skills and build competent teams of experts to support them and maximise their returns and minimise risks.
The purpose of this Mini-Track “Entrepreneurial Operations for Real Estate Investment” is to bring together researchers and industrials interested in entrepreneurial aspects related to real estate investment. Recent advances in the fields of real estate investment and entrepreneurship such as planning and financing, analysing markets, managing business processes and systems, and predictive analytics. This Mini Track is expected to attract practitioners, academics, and professionals and to stimulate interesting discussions about the latest development for entrepreneurial operations and real estate investment.
- Entrepreneurial mindset and characteristics of real estate entrepreneurs
- Risks and challenges facing real estate entrepreneurs
- Real estate analysis techniques, tools, and systems entrepreneurs should be familiar with
- Managing processes and systems in the real estate business
- Predictive analytics and Big data tools for real estate business
- Real estate business planning, strategies, and financing options
- Real-life scenarios of entrepreneurial operations for real estate investment
Creativity and Entrepreneurship
Mini Track Chair: Dr Margaret Mangion, University of Malta
ECIE 2023 Mini Track on Creativity and Entrepreneurship
The creativity and entrepreneurship mini track aims to develop a dialogue leading to research that is relevant to the contemporary world. New and emerging research detailing aspects of creativity and how they may be manifested in entrepreneurship and vice versa are encouraged. Contributions can be submitted in exploring theoretical and empirical perspectives that help us to understand the driving forces in the 21st Century economies and societies.
Suggested topics include but are not limited to:
- The role of the creative self-concept in entrepreneurship
- The relationship between the Big Five, creativity and entrepreneurship
- How the creative process may influence entrepreneurial intent
- The relationship between different contexts (creative and non) and entrepreneurial intent
- Team and individual creativity in entrepreneurship
Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Emerging Technologies in the Never Normal Context
Mini Track Chair Professor Renato Pereira, ISCTE Business School, Lisbon, Portugal
The world is changing at an unprecedent pace. The succession of unexpected events since the beginning of this millennium have been outdating any prospective scenarios shortly after they are released. 9/11/2001, climate change, Covid-19, and the Ukraine war have been requiring societies and businesses to develop unimaginable levels of resilience and flexibility. This new setting has been referred to in the literature as the ‘never normal’ era, a period increasingly dependant on emerging digital technologies developed by sharp and highly innovative entrepreneurs. With this setting in mind, we welcome meaningful research addressing how entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial ventures, and firms are reacting to this reality.
Suggested topics include but are not limited to:
- Innovation and innovation management
- Technological entrepreneurship and emerging technologies
- Venture creation in the ‘never normal’ setting
- Entrepreneurial behaviour in the ‘never normal’ setting
- Entrepreneurial finance for emerging technology development
Design Thinking for Business Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Mini Track Chair: Professor Heather Fulford and Dr Carol Air, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK
ECIE 2023 Mini Track on Design Thinking for Business Innovation and Entrepreneurship
The past few years have been a stark reminder that we live and work in a VUCA world – one characterised by Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. To survive and thrive, businesses in all sectors need, perhaps more than ever before, to identify new ways of working, new business models, and new markets. Innovative thinking and enterprising action are key to adapting and responding to rapidly changing circumstances and contexts. Small-scale start-ups, social enterprises and large business corporations alike have been turning to design thinking tools and techniques to support their business development, business modelling, innovation plans, diversification opportunities, and growth strategies. Many are finding the non-linear, iterative, human-centred features of design thinking approaches well-suited to tackling the complex and multifaceted challenges of the current business environment.
Aiming to bring together academic researchers, business practitioners and enterprise educators, this track will focus on topics including, but not limited to:
- The opportunities and challenges of design thinking for business innovation.
- Design thinking for start-ups
- Case studies applying design thinking in SMES, large businesses, or organisations in the social purpose sector
- Design thinking for start-ups
- Evaluation of design thinking tools and techniques
- Design thinking in entrepreneurship and innovation university learning and teaching
Enhanced Innovation for Better Living
Mini Track Chair: Teresa Dieguez, Isabel Ferreira, Paula Loureiro and Florinda Matos, IPCA - Instituto Politécnico do Cávado e do Ave and ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Portugal
ECIE 2023 Mini Track on Enhanced Innovation for Better Living
Innovation has always played a key role in our economies. From ancient times to the present day and covering all sectors of activity, innovation leads to change, progress, and hope. More than ever, strong, inclusive, and sustainable policies to promote innovation are needed. Being innovative is much more than about new services or products, it can lead to new businesses, new jobs, and cleaner environments. It supports growth, while it is also vital for addressing deep social and global challenges, like aging, resource scarcity, disease, and climate change, among others. Innovation spurs education, skills, and well-being throughout life too. Its ultimate purposes are to search for intelligent solutions to tackle major social ills, seek more proactive approaches to predict the uncertain future, and pursue strategies to remove barriers to the smart future.
This mini track aims to discuss the role of the Triple Helix model constituents in creating and developing a more sustainable interaction among all stakeholders and countries: networks of relations and interactions between academia/ business/ government. It also intends to share best practices for better discussion and reflection about the power we all can have in shaping the desirable future, a more equitable and fairer world for all, not forgetting financial sustainability and environmental balance. Suggested topics include but are not limited to:
- Corporate Social Responsability
- Emerging technologies for better living
- Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
- Higher Education and active methodologies
- Living Labs
- Organizational value creation
- Smart future
- Social innovation
Pedagogical Innovations in Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Mini Track Chair: Jordan Srour and Christy Suciu, Boise State University, Idaho, USA
ECIE 2023 Mini Track on Pedagogical Innovations in Innovation and Entrepreneurship
In this track we seek to highlight innovative pedagogical/teaching/classes/guidance in entrepreneurship classrooms and competitions. These innovations could be, but are not limited to, creative use of technology, virtual exchange, new methods of assessment, competitions, certificates, co-creation, international collaborations, researcher and practitioner alliances and social entrepreneurship and new simulations. We are interested in showcasing your innovative ideas and guidance for best practices used in presentations for competitions and papers related to these types of innovations. We want to meet fellow entrepreneurs from around the world, and learn from each other with new ideas and new approaches for teaching innovation, competitions and entrepreneurship in higher education institutions.
Aiming to bring together academic researchers, business practitioners and enterprise educators, this track will focus on topics including, but not limited to:
- Pedagogical/teaching innovations
- Competitions in innovation – especially those with a social entrepreneurship angle.
- New entrepreneurship classes
- Soft-skills development for international entrepreneurship.
- Entrepreneurship simulations and certificate programs
- Virtual exchanges and co-creations in innovation