EURAM 2006, Oslo, May 17-20 2006
Track No. 50 [MOWS] ???Welcome to the Jungle??? - Managing, Organizing and
Working in Small and Medium Size Enterprises
Call for Papers
Although far more than 90 percent of the firms in Europe actually belong to
the group of Small and Medium Size Enterprises [SMEs], research in the
fields of organisation and management science is still dominated by a
strong focus on large multi-national corporations. Even within the field of
SME-research itself a lot of empirical investigations take their starting
point from such a ???large corporations???-research perspective which only
inadequately accounts for the specific structural characteristics of SMEs.
As a consequence, in the relevant literature these organisations often
nearly inevitably appear to be ???deficient??? or ???underdeveloped??? when it
comes to the handling of essential management issues. Regarding the fact
that the fulfilment of most elementary management functions and
requirements in SMEs frequently follows a fundamentally different logic of
action, the further development of adequate theoretical approaches and
conceptions as well as the conduction of respective empirical research is
needed to overcome this ???large corporations perspective??? in order to allow
for a better understanding of SMEs??? work realities.
With this track we are looking forward to promote the necessary generation
of SME-specific research on key managerial issues such as Strategic
Management and Decision Making, Organization, Human Resource Management,
Organizational Culture, Organizational Learning etc.
The track will be open to scholars in the various fields of
Entrepreneurship, Family Business and SME research which severe themselves
from a stereotype and superficial focus on formal management practices for
the purpose of gaining a deeper understanding of the actual and often
rather informal processes and policies underlying organizational behavior
in SMEs. Papers submitted may be of theoretical or empirical nature
(qualitative as well as quantitative studies). However, empirical studies
should not be limited to the pure display of descriptive data or ???best
practice???- compilations but are expected to have a sound theoretical
foundation. Contributions that do not restrict themselves solely to a
comparison of large and small businesses but further explore the vast
heterogeneity of managerial approaches among the group of SMEs are
especially welcome.
This year???s track will be further divided into three subtracks, each with a
different research focus:
i) Working in Small and Medium Size Enterprises This sub-track has a strong
focus on the inside dimension of SMEs (human resource management,
organizational culture, internal cooperation, employee relations etc.).
Theoretical explorations and empirical investigations are equally welcome.
ii) Strategizing the Organizational Knowledge in Small Innovative Firms
This sub-track welcomes a) papers inspired by ???post-positivistic
approaches??? about the nature of knowledge/ knowing in small firms (e.g.,
social activity theory, social constructionism, phenomenical approaches),
b) empirical research focusing on the political and emotional dimensions of
interpersonal trust in knowledge building and knowledge transferring
processes and c) explorations of strategy practices within specific
organizational forms both of single small innovative firms, and of groups
of small innovative firms.
iii) Working and Managing the Closely Held Family Business This subtheme
welcomes papers with a specific focus on issues and topics in closely held
family firms. The interest in and research on these organizations has grown
considerably over the last years, but in-depth understanding, provided by
rigorous theoretical analysis of empirical material is still lacking in
many areas.
Illustrative sub-topics
??? Resource-Based View in SME Research
??? Dynamic Capabilities of SMEs
??? Micro Strategizing in SMEs
??? Social Interactions (inside and outside) in SMEs
??? Human Resource Management in SME ??? Sense Making in SMEs
??? Organizational Culture and Trust in SMEs
??? Employee Relations and Psychological Contracts in SMEs
??? Empirical methods for researching SMEs
??? Epistemological concerns in SME Research
??? Entrepreneurship and Female Owners/Managers
??? Knowledge, Resources and Dynamic Capabilities of SMEs
??? Innovation Management in SMEs
??? Entrepreneurship, Innovation and New Firm Performance
??? Spin off processes and knowledge transfer
??? Entrepreneurship against the background of regional/local developments
Submission of Papers
We invite authors to submit papers with an abstract of no more than 200
words and maximum 5 key words. Papers must be submitted in digital form
(Microsoft Word .doc format).
Submission by digital upload will begin on December 12, 2005 on the
conference web site:
www.euram2006.no
Information on format, style, and references are posted on the EURAM Web
site. The format and style guide appear as a downloadable document in MS
Word .doc format. Authors will be able to use the format guide as a
template for submissions.
All papers will be subject to double blind review.
Deadline for submissions: February 1, 2006.
Track Chairs
Thomas Behrends
Small Business Management
Lueneburg University, Germany
Phone: +49 4131 78-2135
Fax: +49 4131 78-2122
e-mail:
behrends@uni-lueneburg.de
Emilio Bellini
KLEOS-RCOST Knowledge Lab on Organizational Engineering in Software
Industry Research Center On Software Technology
University of Sannio, Benevento, Italy
Phone: +39 0825 824935
Fax: +39 0825 873328
e-mail:
bellini@unisannio.it
Annika Hall
J???nk???ping International Business School
J???nk???ping University J???nk???ping, Sweden
Phone: +46 3615 7513
Fax: +46 3618 8178
e-mail:
annika.hall@jibs.hj.se