Call for Papers

The Labor Market and Human Resource Management Implications of Entrepreneurship


The ILR Review seeks papers for a conference and subsequent special issue devoted to improving our understanding of the labor market and human resource management implications of entrepreneurship. Diane Burton (Cornell University), Rob Fairlie (UC Santa Cruz), and Don Siegel (University at Albany, SUNY) will be the guest editors of the issue. Scholars interested in participating should submit an abstract to the Journal by July 1, 2016. Entrepreneurship is a topic of growing interest to academics and policymakers, but labor and employment relations scholars have been slower than those in other fields to focus on this topic. The purpose of this conference and special issue is to advance our understanding of how entrepreneurial firms affect human resource management and related labor market outcomes. Some of the many issues that could be explored include:

* Contribution of entrepreneurial firms to job creation, wage growth, and regional economic development (e.g., Decker et al. 2014) * Entrepreneurship and career choices, including work in the social sector or social entrepreneurship * Entrepreneurship and the quality of jobs (e.g., Litwin and Phan 2013) * Public sector entrepreneurship programs, such as SBIR/STTR at the federal-level and state-level initiatives (e.g., Link and Scott 2012) * Labor market and HRM effects of private equity and alternative investments (e.g., Harris, Siegel, and Wright 2005; Appelbaum and Batt 2014; Davis et al. 2014) * Labor market and HRM effects of “academic entrepreneurship,” or efforts on the part of universities to foster commercialization by academics and students (e.g., Link, Siegel, and Wright 2015) * Entrepreneurship and diversity (e.g., Shivakumar and Dierksheide 2015) * Labor market and HRM implications of entrepreneurial ecosystems, including incubators, accelerators, and science and technology parks * Entrepreneurship, work experience, and human capital (e.g., Fairlie and Robb 2007)

Editorial Process for the Conference and Special Issue

The abstract should be three to five pages and contain a description of the research question addressed, data sources, and proposed methodology. The nature of the arguments and findings should be previewed. Authors whose abstracts are accepted will be invited to a conference to be held in the Lecture Room at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, on October 14, 2016. Conference expenses will be partially subsidized. Papers presented at this conference should be suitable for immediate submission to external reviewers. Based on the reviewers’ recommendations, discussions at the conference, and fit with the issue, a subset of authors will be asked to undertake revisions with the expectation that their papers will be published in the special issue once they pass the external review process. Papers that are judged to be of high quality, but which are not selected for the special issue, will be considered for publication in a regular issue of the journal. Empirical papers based on a wide range of methodologies are welcome, including survey research, fieldwork in the form of qualitative or quantitative case studies, and the use of archival data. Submitted abstracts may reflect a range of methodologies, including surveys, qualitative or quantitative fieldwork, experiments, or the use of historical/archival data.


To submit your abstract for consideration, please e-mail it to ilrr@cornell.edu and put CFP Entrepreneurship Abstract in the subject line.


References

  • Appelbaum, Eileen, and Rosemary Batt. 2014. Private Equity at Work. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Davis, Steven J., John Haltiwanger, Kyle Handley, Ron Jarmin, Josh Lerner, and Javier Miranda. 2014. Private equity, jobs, and productivity. American Economic Review 104(12): 3956–90. Decker, Ryan, John Haltiwanger, Ron Jarmin, and Javier Miranda. 2014. The role of entrepreneurship in US job creation and economic dynamism. Journal of Economic Perspectives 28(3): 3–24. Fairlie, Robert W., and Alicia M. Robb. 2007. Families, human capital, and small business: Evidence from the Characteristics of Business Owners Survey. ILR Review 60(2): 225–45. Harris, Richard, Donald S. Siegel, and Mike Wright. 2005. Assessing the impact of management buyouts on economic efficiency: Plant-level evidence from the United Kingdom. Review of Economics and Statistics 87(1): 148–53. Link, Albert N., and John T. Scott. 2012. Employment growth from public support of innovation in small firms. Kalamazoo, MI: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Link, Albert N., Donald S. Siegel, and Mike Wright. 2015. Chicago Handbook of University Technology Transfer and Academic Entrepreneurship. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Litwin, Adam S., and Phillip H. Phan. 2013. Quality over quantity: Reexamining the link between entrepreneurship and job creation. ILR Review 66(4): 833–73. Shivakumar, Sujai, and David E. Dierksheide. 2015. Innovation, Diversity, and the SBIR/STTR Programs: Summary of a Workshop. Accessed at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK315940/. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.