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Thank you for the overwhelming response to the fifth year of our Professional Development Workshop,
Using Simulation Experiments to Build and Test Entrepreneurship Theories.
On Saturday, August 8th, we will be in Room 220 of the Vancouver Convention Centre from 3:15 to 6:45. Previous editions of this PDW required pre-registration and an entry fee because the event was completely booked. This time, we simply requested an enormous room. So, we have space for you. See page three of the Convention Centre's map:
http://program.aom.org/2015/maps/Vancouver_Convention_Centre.pdf
We have a fantastic panel talking about an extremely important topic in the domain: theory development. This topic is especially vital to organizational scholars in general, and entrepreneurship scholars, in particular, where the field is believed to be "tilting at windmills"-referencing Cervantes' misguided and hapless Don Quixote-attempting to develop a comprehensive theory that can unite our efforts. These efforts become exceedingly difficult given the extreme variance in the distribution of both the inputs and outcomes of entrepreneurial action. To wit, seminal (Simon, 1968) and contemporary (Boisot & McKelvey, 2010) theory-building guidance suggests that when highly skewed distributions (e.g., heavy-tailed power laws) are present in a domain, the assumptions of linear relationships and independent observations at the foundation of Gaussian statistics are invalid. Indeed, studies show that using Gaussian assumptions and methods to explain and predict these phenomena can lead to inaccurate conclusions, under-specified theoretical models, and misleading normative recommendations-all of which reduce the credibility of scholarly research (O'Boyle & Aguinis, 2012).
Even more problematic for the domain, new work from Crawford, Aguinis, Lichtenstein, Davidsson, & McKelvey (2015, JBV just released, hopefully attached here) finds that all theoretically generalizable inputs (e.g., number and duration of activities, environmental munificence, individual and team resources like human, social, and financial capital) and outcomes (e.g., annual revenue, number of employees, and growth) are power law distributed. No matter how entrepreneurship is defined, no matter how entrepreneurial performance is measured, the findings of this study call into question the efficacy of traditional methods and theories. More interestingly, the discovery of power laws now requires the development of theories about the mechanism(s) that generate such distributions and the numerous outliers therein.
Now, the domain must re-evaluate all of its assumptions. Simulation methods, where assumptions are inherently explicit, have been proposed as a valid alternative for constructing rigorous, formal theory (Adner, Pólos, Ryall, & Sorenson, 2009) that can account for our globally interdependent, nonlinear, and uncertain empirical reality.
The first half of the PDW will cover theory development using simulation from a conceptual view, including presentations from Christopher Crawford (OhioU), Mohammed Keyhani (UCalgary), and Moren Levesque (YorkU). The latter two will have dialogue about disseminating this type of research from both an author's and editor's perspective. The second half of the PDW will address applied model building. This year, Bob Porter (UCentral Florida) will walk attendees through NetLogo, a free agent-based modeling toolkit, and interactively demonstrate general simulation examples and specific model-building techniques. Martin Ganco (UMinnesota) will wrap up the session, identifying means by which conceptual and applied model building can contribute to the domain.
If you are industrious and inquisitive (and you are...), download the NetLogo toolkit to your laptop now. If you bring your laptop to the PDW, you can work through some of Bob's general examples with him. The toolkit can be downloaded here:
http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/
The online description of the PDW is here:
http://program.aom.org/2015/submission.asp?mode=ShowSession&SessionID=1308
We also have a website under construction for the PDW that houses articles and presentation files from previous workshops. After the 2015 session, I'll post presentation and model files. Check it all out at:
https://sites.google.com/site/simbuildtest/home
Hope to see you there.
Best regards,
CC
G. Christopher Crawford, Ph.D. in Entrepreneurship, University of Louisville (2013)
Kauffman Dissertation Fellow
Assistant Professor of Strategic Management, Ohio University
Research Captain, Center of Entrepreneurship
304 Copeland Hall
Athens, OH 45701
(M) 513-295-8717
(T) @DrRedApple
(E) Christopher.Crawford@Ohio.edu
(Skype) ProfCCrawford
Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/G_Crawford
Voted 'Best OU Professor' Athens News 2014 (1st Place), 2015 (2nd Place)