Call for Papers

Call for short papers (pdf)

Entrepreneurship is widely promoted as a pathway to socioeconomic advancement, particularly in contexts marked by poverty, exclusion, and institutional fragility (Mair et al., 2012; Morris et al., 2022). In particular, social entrepreneurship has been heralded as a means of fostering social inclusion, empowerment, and collective agency (Haugh & Talwar, 2016; Mair & Marti, 2009). Across the world, marginalized communities themselves are crafting grassroots entrepreneurial initiatives (Hertel et al., 2019; Peredo & Chrisman, 2006) that address unmet needs, generate livelihoods, and experiment with alternative forms of organizing. These initiatives reveal how communities at the margins play with, reinterpret, and sometimes rewrite the “rules of the game” that structure economic and social life (North, 1990). 

Yet entrepreneurship in marginalized communities often produces paradoxical outcomes (Pongeluppe, 2024; Weiss et al., 2023). While some initiatives create spaces for participation, solidarity, and economic mobility (Murthy et al., 2020; Peredo, 2023), others inadvertently reproduce inequalities, confront hostile institutional environments, or become constrained by power asymmetries with privileged actors and external intermediaries (Granados et al., 2022; Hall et al., 2012; Pongeluppe, 2024). The institutional “rules of the game” that govern markets, civil society, and public services—whether formal or informal (North, 1990)—may support, distort, or undermine community-led organizing (Simarasl et al., 2022). Marginalized actors are thus required to mobilize resources and to navigate, negotiate, and sometimes resist institutional arrangements that shape what forms of entrepreneurship are possible and desirable. 

This sub-theme invites research that examines how entrepreneurship in marginalized communities intersects with institutions and organizing processes across Global North and Global South contexts. We seek to understand how marginalized communities collectively organize entrepreneurial activity, how they experience and confront institutional barriers, and how they innovate new rules, norms, and organizational practices that reshape what entrepreneurship can look like globally. By foregrounding institutions as both constraints and sites of contestation, the track contributes to the conference theme by highlighting how marginalized entrepreneurs engage in forms of organizing that challenge, bend, or reconfigure existing organizational orders and rules of the game in favor of the margins. Thereby, we extend previous conversations at EGOS on entrepreneurship, communities, and inequalities while welcoming and encouraging diverse, interdisciplinary perspectives on the topic.

Papers submitted to the sub-theme can address any of the following (non-exhaustive) list of key research questions: 

• How do institutions—formal and informal—shape the organization of entrepreneurship in marginalized communities, and how do marginalized actors interpret, negotiate, or contest these rules? 

• How do marginalized entrepreneurs collectively organize to build legitimacy, manage tensions, and foster resilience within and for their communities? 

• What new or alternative forms of organizing emerge from marginalized communities, and how do these forms reimagine participation, agency, governance, and resource distribution? 

• How do entrepreneurial initiatives in marginalized settings navigate the dual roles of institutions as both supportive structures and gatekeeping mechanisms? 

• In what ways do grassroots actors “rewrite the rules” by creating new norms, practices, or institutional arrangements that challenge dominant models of entrepreneurship and organization? 

• How do marginalized entrepreneurs negotiate with, depend on, or work around privileged actors, external organizations, and existing power structures? 

• Under what conditions do entrepreneurial initiatives in marginalized communities generate empowerment rather than reinforce inequalities, and how do institutional dynamics contribute to these divergent outcomes? 

• How do community-led enterprises mobilize, distribute, and govern resources in ways that differ from mainstream organizational logics? 

• What does organizing in and from the margins look like in the Global North compared to the Global South? How do institutions influence organizing in marginality across diverse contexts? 

• Granados, M. L., Rosli, A., & Gotsi, M. (2022). Staying poor: Unpacking the process of barefoot institutional entrepreneurship failure. Journal of Business Venturing, 37(3).
• Hall, J., Matos, S., Sheehan, L., & Silvestre, B. (2012). Entrepreneurship and innovation at the base of the pyramid: A recipe for inclusive growth or social exclusion? Journal of Management Studies, 49(4), 785–812.
• Haugh, H. M., & Talwar, A. (2016). Linking social entrepreneurship and social change: The mediating role of empowerment. Journal of Business Ethics, 133(4), 643–658.
• Hertel, C., Bacq, S., & Belz, F. M. (2019). It takes a village to sustain a village: A social identity perspective on successful community-based enterprise creation. Academy of Management Discoveries, 5(4), 438–464.
• Mair, J., & Marti, I. (2009). Entrepreneurship in and around institutional voids: A case study from Bangladesh. Journal of Business Venturing, 24(5), 419–435.
• Mair, J., Marti, I., & Ventresca, M. J. (2012). Building inclusive markets in rural Bangladesh: How intermediaries work institutional voids. Academy of Management Journal, 55(4), 819–850.
• Morris, M. H., Soleimanof, S., & Tucker, R. (2023). Drivers of fragility in the ventures of poverty entrepreneurs. Small Business Economics, 61(1), 305–323.
• Murphy, M., Danis, W. M., & Mack, J. (2020). From principles to action: Community-based entrepreneurship in the Toquaht Nation. Journal of Business Venturing, 35(6), Article 106051.
• North, D. C. (1990). Institutions, institutional change and economic performance. Cambridge University Press.
• Peredo, A. M. (2023). The unsettling potential of Indigenous organizing. Organization, 30(6), 1211–1221.
• Peredo, A. M., & Chrisman, J. J. (2006). Toward a theory of community-based enterprise. Academy of Management Review, 31(2), 309–328.
• Pongeluppe, L. S. (2024). The allegory of the favela: The multifaceted effects of socioeconomic mobility. Administrative Science Quarterly, 69(3), 619–654.
• Simarasl, N., Jiang, D., Pandey, S., & Navis, C. (2022). Constrained but not contained: How marginalized entrepreneurs overcome institutional bias and mobilize resources. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 16(4), 853–888.
• Weiss, T., Eberhart, R., Lounsbury, M., Nelson, A., Rindova, V., Meyer, J., ... Aldrich, D. (2023). The social effects of entrepreneurship on society and some potential remedies: Four provocations. Journal of Management Inquiry, 32(4), 251–277.