2040: Pragmatist Foundations of Research on Entrepreneurial Strategy (15132)

Tuesday, August 13, 2024

11:30 – 13:00 CT (GMT-5/UTC-5)

Location: Hyatt: Roosevelt 3B

Session Number: 2040
Symposium (panel)
Orientation: Research
Shareable link: https://cdmcd.co/XKpnAq

Organizer(s)

AS

Anastasia Sergeeva

U. of Bath, United Kingdom
DR

David K. Reetz

Technical U. of Munich, Germany

Panelist(s)

DD

Dimo P. Dimov

U. of Bath, United Kingdom
JM

Joseph T. Mahoney

U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States
SM

Saku Mantere

McGill U., Canada

Slides
VR

Violina Rindova

U. of California-Irvine, United States
TZ

Todd Zenger

U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business, United States
AC

Arnaldo Camuffo

Bocconi U., Italy

American pragmatism provides a rich intellectual foundation that accommodates diverse practices in service of “usefulness” and as such is well-suited to examine formation of entrepreneurial strategies that aim at changing the status quo, while facing fundamental uncertainty associated with such attempts. Research on entrepreneurial strategy drawing on pragmatism is burgeoning but remains dispersed across research communities. For example, one branch of such research focuses on how entrepreneurs adapt and evolve their ideas using scientific reasoning to test beliefs about (future) states of the world, while another branch focuses on the generative power of entrepreneurial agency employing abductive reasoning for creative world-making. There is, however, substantial potential for cross-pollination between such branches. This symposium will bring together a diverse group of leading scholars from these areas of research, to create a common ground of key pragmatist assumptions, raise open questions for future studies examining the phenomenon of entrepreneurial strategy formation, and chart opportunities for a fruitful (joint) research program.