Spirituality, social innovation and religious entrepreneurship
Stream #19
Stream #19
Chairs: Brett Smith (Miami University), Andrea Sottini (Università Cattolica)
Scholars dating back to Smith (1776) and Weber (1930, 1958) have argued that religion plays a fundamental role in shaping economic activities (Zelekha et al., 2014). Despite this early interest, scholarship over the ensuing decades paid little attention to the relationship between religion and entrepreneurship (Tracey, 2012). More recently, research interests and contributions around religious institutions have been growing (Berger and Berger, 1972; Busenitz and Lichtenstein, 2019; Drakopoulou-Dodd and Spearman, 1998; Gümüsay, 2020a; Quattrone, 2015). In this vein, research at the nexus between religion and entrepreneurship has increased with several publications in leading journals (e.g. Griebel et al., 2014; Tracey, 2012; Zelekha, 2013; see for review Balong et al., 2014; Vasconcelos, 2018). Scholars theoretically conceptualized religion as a social institution which is a source of economic and social capital for entrepreneurs (Choi, 2010; Galbraith et al., 2007; Neubert, 2019; Nwankwo et al., 2012) as well as values and norms that guide entrepreneurial actions (Amoako and Lyon, 2014).
Taking together, religion may allow entrepreneurs to build networks and working relationships with partners based on shared beliefs and values (Puffer et al., 2010), to acquire resources such as advice and financial capital (Dodd and Seaman 2007), and to connect with emerging ecosystems of accelerators, investors, and support organizations (Smith et al., 2019). Diving deeper into entrepreneurship, research suggests religion influences entrepreneurial action (Smith et al., 2109) including opportunity recognition, scaling, and social innovation s (Ganzin et al., 2019; Neubert et al. 2017; Pearce et. al., 2010; Tracey, 2012). Likewise, recent contributions highlight the impact of humanistic values of religion, such as principle of gratuitousness, solidarity, and orientation toward a common good, (Balog et al., 2014; Donati, 2009; Gümüsay, 2020a; Parboteeah et al., 2009; Kauanui et al., 2010; Ramasamy et al., 2010) on the development of fair-trade practices (Cater et al., 2017), social enterprise and social business movements (Spear, 2007) (e.g. IGIAD in Turkey and Zahnräder, in German, promote business’s approach that embrace Islamic values).
Despite the prominent theoretical and emerging empirical relationship between religion, entrepreneurship and social innovation, scholarship on these streams remains fragmented, with many research questions unanswered. For this reason, invite contributions to the special issue on the following, but non-exhaustive, topics:
1) Religion and social innovation
2) Religion and entrepreneurial attitude
3) Religion and side effects on entrepreneurial activities
4) Religion and institutional norms
5) Religion and entrepreneurial ecosystem
6) Religion and misinterpretation religious codes
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