New work co-authored with the House of Innovation provides guidance for authors wishing to use qualitative methods by outlining four characteristics of entrepreneurship research that qualitative research is uniquely designed to address.

An important process that occurs at the nexus of entrepreneurship and family is the creation of new opportunities for one’s self and one’s kin. But this is not an easy task. There are many challenges that come with facing this unfamiliar and uncharted territory. For this reason, it makes sense that the journey be narrated in the form of metaphors embedded in family discourse. Yet, little is known about how these narratives are constructed or used.

Alliances are at the core of firms’ innovation strategies. They allow firms to strengthen their innovation activities by providing access to technological knowledge developed by other firms. For this reason, alliances are particularly common in high-tech industries where the market position of firms is very dependent on their ability to introduce new and improved products and services. Often, however, alliances fail to meet expectations and do not lead to valuable outputs. It is therefore important to understand what distinguishes successful from less successful alliances.

Digitalization is changing many service industries. Nowhere is this more apparent than in standard business-to-consumer services. But also, business-to-business services are also being increasingly blended with digital technologies. Little is known about how this latter type of service is being changed by the onset of robots and artificial intelligence.

Exploratory research goes beyond testing existing ideas to illuminate phenomena without regard to offering a specific reason for doing so. For this reason, exploratory research is vital to entrepreneurship research where new phenomenon such as crowdfunding, social ventures, and digital business models emerge that scholars may lack existing tools to explain. Well-done exploratory research offers a great opportunity to make useful contributions to entrepreneurship scholarship.

In recent years, scholars have become increasingly interested in understanding the challenges and opportunities of building entrepreneurial family businesses from different perspectives. Most researchers in this area tend to draw on insights from the management and economics disciplines for theoretical and methodological guidance. However, other subjects, like psychology, family sciences, and history, have also been emphasized – and now even the humanities.

Today’s international markets are saturated with overwhelming concerns about issues related to the environment, specifically with issues related to how business intersects with environmental conservation. Consumers are becoming more and more prone to purchase products that consider the environment and sustainability, and they are more willing to pay the premium price tag that comes along with supporting those sustainability efforts. This growing concern has inspired manufacturing firms to develop more effective environmental management practices as they innovate newer and better products.

An increasing number of family firms choose to select a non-family CEO for the highest executive office when there is no suitable family member available. A recent example of this is the Swedish retail giant H&M where the third generation family member Karl-Johan Persson recently handed over to the non-family CEO Helena Helmersson. However, appointing a non-family CEO in a family firm tends to give rise to tensions.

Syrian refugees living in Lebanon today are facing limited freedom of movement, limited access to services, and constrained labor rights. For these people, mobile phones serve as essential tools for rebuilding social networks shattered by involuntary displacement.

New research on innovation explores how management ideas change workplace practices while workplace practices change management ideas.