Call for papers

Call for papers

London Business School

The Department of Strategy and Entrepreneurship

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Sumantra Ghoshal Strategy Conference on Managerially Relevant Research May 13-14, 2012 London, United Kingdom

Deadline for submissions: 16th January 2012

The Department of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the London Business School invites you to submit research papers for presentation at the sixth annual Sumantra Ghoshal Strategy Conference on Managerially Relevant Research, to be held on campus on May 13th - 14th 2012.

In keeping with the spirit of the late Sumantra Ghoshal's research philosophy, our aim is to invite research presentations that not only meet the highest standards of academic rigour but also create insights that are of value to practitioners - managers, consultants and policy makers. London Business School faculty will select a mix of papers that complement each other, and a panel of distinguished scholars and practitioners will serve as discussants.

The purpose of the conference is threefold:

1. To honour the late Sumantra Ghoshal.
2. To stimulate bridges between management research and practice (with the aim of making management research more relevant and help the practice of management to be more rigorous).
3. To build a community of scholars interested in relevant management research. Type of sessions and invitation.

There are two types of sessions at the Ghoshal conference:

  • Academic paper presentations. There are four tracks of academic papers: 1) Innovation and technology strategy; 2) Managing across (multiple) boundaries; 3) Strategy and new forms of organization; 4) The drivers and consequences of corporate social innovation
  • Panel presentations. These two tracks concern presentations that pertain to a particular subject rather than a particular paper, yet are heavily based on academic research; both published and unpublished, by the presenter and others. This year the topics will be "The Shifting Landscape of Entrepreneurial Finance" and "Strategy and Institutional Entrepreneurship".

The panel presentations are by invited speakers, while the academic paper presentations are selected through an open submission process (see below for information on how to submit). Do note that if we reject your paper this should not be interpreted as a judgement of insufficient quality. Over the past years, many participants indicated that what they greatly appreciated about the conference was the coherence of the sessions. Hence, not including your paper can simply mean that we did not have any other suitable papers to match it with. Most conferences and journals reject papers based on quality alone. Of course, quality is a necessary condition for acceptance at the Ghoshal conference also, but as explained, a rejection does not mean that the quality was deemed insufficient; it could simply be an issue of fit.

Academic paper tracks

I. Innovation and Technology Strategy
Track chair: Lourdes Sosa
Co-organiser: Julian Birkinshaw

For this session, we welcome manuscripts that examine topics on innovation and its implications for competition. We are equally interested in papers that explore the impact of innovation on factors that affect competition (R&D performance, firm survival, market formation or entry) as on factors that impact the ability to innovate (organizational design and networks, incentive systems, managerial cognition). We welcome studies on all levels of analysis, from research on individual scientists or managers to comparisons of industry settings. Likewise, we are interested in all types of organizations involved in the innovation process, including not only for-profit firms but also universities, professional associations and innovation communities.

II. Managing across (multiple) boundaries
Track chair: Louise Mors
Co-organiser: Michael Jacobides

In today's complex, global environment organizations have to manage across multiple boundaries. These include geography, organization, and industry boundaries. This session will look at how organizations tackle the challenge of managing across one or more of these boundaries. We invite a broad set of papers, empirical and theoretical alike, that provide insight into how organizations manage this challenge, as well as how these boundaries evolve. This could include - but is not limited to - papers that look at multinationals, organizational networks, and/or industry architectures.

III. Strategy and New Forms of Organization
Track chair: Phanish Puranam
Co-organisers: Kevin Boudreau and Costas Markides

This session will feature papers that analyse innovations in organizing - i.e. novel forms of organization. We hope to feature a set of papers that carefully document such novel forms of organization, explain why they are novel, and analyse how they work. Analyses of why and where such forms arose, the limits to their diffusion and adoption, and how the process of organizational innovations differs from product or process innovations would be welcome. The organizations considered need not be restricted to the technology or indeed the for-profit sector; we are equally keen to receive papers that highlight organizational innovation in the voluntary sector or government.

IV. The Drivers and Consequences of Corporate Social Innovation
Track chair: Yiannis Ioannou
Co-organiser: Brandon Lee

For this session, we invite manuscripts that explore which organizations (and why) engage in social innovation and the strategic and performance consequences of such actions. We broadly term as "social innovation" those product, process or business model innovations that are specifically designed to synergistically generate economic as well as positive environmental and social value. Such innovations purport to strategically exploit profitable business opportunities while simultaneously contributing to the resolution of the world's most urgent and acute challenges such as climate change, among many others. This session will showcase original research work focused on how social and environmental issues are embedded in companies' business models, and whether (and how) such embeddedness results in meaningful economic and social/environmental outcomes.

Topical panels

I. The Shifting Landscape of Entrepreneurial Finance
Organisers: Gary Dushnitsky, Ben Hallen

This session will bring together academics and business and policy decision makers to map out the changing reality in which entrepreneurial ventures experience substantial turmoil and change, and operate as resource needs on the one hand, and capital sources on the other hand. Highlighted changes will include the globalization of venture investing, the falling costs of early-venture development, the shifting interplay of angels, venture capitalists, and corporate investors, and the role of governments in facilitating (or not) a vibrant ecosystem of entrepreneurial finance. Panellists will discuss the extent to which these and other changes both alleviate and introduce challenges for entrepreneurs and investors, as well as the resulting opportunities for researchers and policy makers.

II. Strategy and Institutional Entrepreneurship Organisers: Yiorgos Mylonadis, Donal Crilly

Competition drives much of the creation of value in business. The resurgence of structured contests is an attempt to utilize this approach for the pursuit of social objectives. These contests, which are arranged by prominent foundations, reward innovative solutions to seemingly intractable social problems. This session will explore the effect of this interplay between competition and social objectives. What are the benefits and limitations of introducing notions of competition in the pursuit of social objectives? What are the implications for corporate philanthropy? Can intrinsic motives alone sustain competitive behaviour among contestants? We aim to invite panellists who can anchor the discussion in theoretical and empirical work on contests, as well as in first-hand experience with the design and use of contests as a public policy instrument. The presentations in these two panels do not concern a particular paper; instead the presenters give an overview of what, in their opinion, we know about the topic or a particular aspect of the topic. As mentioned above, the panel presenters are predominantly invited speakers. However, if you are potentially interested in contributing to one of these two sessions, please contact the conference organiser (Isabel Fernandez-Mateo).

Submission process

If you are interested in presenting in one of the four academic tracks, please send your paper submissions to both the conference organiser, Isabel Fernandez-Mateo (ifernandezmateo@london.edu ), and the conference administrator, Hanna Box (hbox@london.edu), indicating the track(s) in which you are interested. They will distribute your proposal to the relevant track organisers. The deadline for submission is January 16th, 2012. Submissions selected for presentation will be notified by February 20th, 2012. London Business School will reimburse economy airfare (amount TBC) and arrange accommodation for presenters who attend both days of the conference.

For more information on the conference, on the department of Strategy & Entrepreneurship at the London Business School, as well as previous Sumantra Ghoshal Strategy Conferences please visit the conference website.