Failure and entrepreneurship: Practice, research, and pedagogy

Entrepreneurship is widely seen not only as central to economies, driving economic growth, and job creation (Audretsch, Grilo, and Thurik 2007) but also with the potential to contribute to addressing societal challenges such as social exclusion and disadvantage (Greene, Mole, and Storey 2008). However, in focusing on the benefits and opportunities of entrepreneurship it is important not to overlook failure (Wapshott and Mallett 2018). This special issue seeks to address this by developing a multifaceted approach to failure in the practice, research, and pedagogy of entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship is associated with failure in political and popular discourse in ways that focus on failure as a route to learning and eventual success (Olaison and Sørensen 2014). The incorporation of these assumptions into an over-archiving narrative of success risks obscuring and underplaying the psychological, social, and financial consequences of different types of failure in entrepreneurship (Khelil 2016; Mantere et al. 2013; Ucbasaran et al. 2010, 2013). Engaging with failure seriously, whereby it is an outcome in itself as well as part of a journey to eventual success, is necessary to build authentic images and deeper understanding of entrepreneurship as experienced by those who pursue it.

As entrepreneurship researchers, we also need to discuss our own failures. This is necessitated by the need to address the dangers of a positive-outcome bias in published research across disciplines potentially leading to the suppression of negative results (Easterbrook et al. 1991; Fanelli 2012). Like other fields of research, studies of entrepreneurship face risks of publication bias in terms of favoring ‘successful’ studies and obscuring those that fail to provide support for earlier findings or theories and studies that seek to innovate or pioneer but fail by some measure to fully achieve their goals. This also suggests that consideration is needed in terms of how to interpret and report such findings (Hauck and Anderson 1986). Publishing and discussing negative findings may be particularly important in testing the applicability and relevance of dominant Western theories in different national and cultural contexts in order to effectively facilitate the international development of entrepreneurship theory. The special issue is therefore particularly keen to receive studies from a range of national and cultural perspectives and especially comparative work on these bases.

Engaging with experiences of failure in entrepreneurship and the limitations of how research shapes our knowledge of entrepreneurship has implications for how pedagogy in this field is constructed (Shepherd 2004). Accounts of failure might help temper over-reliance on the stories of high-profile winners, which tell us very little (Neck and Greene 2011), but how can these be incorporated into programs of learning about entrepreneurship? Pedagogical development and innovation may also benefit from our own stories of failure. Accounts of pedagogy engaging with failure in meaningful ways will be most welcome.

The following themes are of interest, however all submissions that address the substantive area are welcome:

1. Failure in entrepreneurship – on whose terms and how is this evaluated?

2. The consequences of failing in entrepreneurship, such as bankruptcy, loss of confidence, and the effects on those surrounding the entrepreneur;

3. Failures of entrepreneurship research, negative findings;

4. Failures of cross-cultural replication and how this could offer vital insights;

5. Failed innovations in research methods or entrepreneurship education;

6. The emerging area of critical entrepreneurship studies and the practical implications of its insights;

7. The implications of understanding failure for effective entrepreneurship education.

We welcome submissions adopting diverse methodological approaches along with contributions from international teams of colleagues. Even where discussing failures of research, submissions must attend to the journal’s standards and requirements in terms of utilizing the material to make a significant contribution to relevant debates.

In focusing on a topic such as ‘failure’ we emphasize that contributors should have regard for their research participants. Our aim here is to generate further discussion of failure in entrepreneurship as a topic and as something for researchers to engage with seriously. We are not setting out to label people as ‘failures.’

For initial enquiries and expressions of interest please contact:

Dr Oliver Mallett, Associate Editor for Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, [email protected]

Full papers are due by 30 September 2019 and the special issue is scheduled to publish January 2021. Papers must be original and comply with JSBE submissions. Refer to http://www.tandfonline.com/rsbe for submission guidelines and a link to the online submission system. In the online system, make sure you submit your script within Manuscript Type: ‘Special Issue: Failures in Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurship Research’.

Andrea Lane
Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

Oliver Mallett
University of Stirling, Stirling, Scotland

Robert Wapshott
University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom