Building Together for Tomorrow 

The world as a source of inspiration to rethink entrepreneurship education

- April 2024,15th to 17th, Roanne (France) -

Whether seen as a socio-economic challenge, a pathway to personal emancipation and fulfillment, or a tool for public policy, the teaching and practice of entrepreneurship are central concerns worldwide. For decades, understanding and nurturing these entrepreneurial trends, supporting businesses in innovation and growth, and ensuring their sustainability have been pivotal to political agendas, research initiatives, and entrepreneurial education globally. From a Schumpeterian viewpoint, entrepreneurs have historically been agents of change, reshaping our economies and certain societal norms, such as work relationships and desired outcomes, often aiming for increased flexibility and economic performance. Current crises underscore that entrepreneurship cannot be the sole solution or an endless growth driver. The IPCC advocates for a profound shift in activities and behaviors across all sectors, including entrepreneurship.

The younger generation is clearly poised for these transformative shifts, placing a premium on purpose and authenticity in their work and entrepreneurial endeavors. Driven by self-determination and a desire to shape their own futures, they are more inclined to embark on ventures than their predecessors, championing projects that reflect their values, prioritize environmental responsibility, and aim for tangible impact. While not confining themselves to the social and solidarity economy, they often prioritize factors other than just economic performance, embracing alternative criteria and emerging business models. Yet, the entrepreneurial ecosystems they seek to join often remain entrenched in traditional evaluation metrics and ROI criteria, especially during crises. Recent GEM reports emphasize the vast disconnect between recognizing environmental challenges and taking actionable steps. A collective narrative, one that inspires hope and action, is missing. This void, combined with a lack of inspiring examples, leads to societal apathy, resignation, and indifference. This context also diminishes the perceived legitimacy of entrepreneurs and their varied-impact projects, complicating their funding and viability. This evolving entrepreneurial paradigm, with its emphasis on impact, hasn't yet reached its tipping point or found the right narrative to spread its ideas and dominate the discourse. Numerous innovative approaches are being explored globally, and while it's impossible to catalog them all, discussing these pioneering efforts can guide our way forward. While the concept of entrepreneurship inherently suggests social transformation, it's often sidelined in contemporary research. Now, more than ever, the idea of collaboratively "building a better world" is a focal point of discussions among scholars, commentators, and advocates.

Our world is abundant with positive action examples, potential role models, and leaders who inspire collective action towards shared goals, even in uncertain times. It's a tapestry of diversity: in origins, cultures, academic disciplines, roles, and adaptability to the significant changes we face. This diversity challenges our existing paradigms, urging us to recognize and adopt successful strategies from other contexts. The world offers a wealth of inspiration, and it's with this spirit of openness and receptivity that we believe we can envision the future. The CREE 2024 conference aims to conceptualize the future entrepreneur, drawing from this rich tapestry of experiences and ongoing or prospective research, with a focus on practical insights. We're especially keen to amplify voices from the Francophone community, in partnership with the Francophone University Alliance, spanning regions from Morocco to Madagascar and Senegal to the Caribbean, but also give a voice and share conversations with European communities. Sharing our practices is meant to inspire and assist in navigating an unpredictable future. We also aim to spotlight collaborations between practitioners and academics across disciplines, showcasing the inclusive spirit of entrepreneurship that supports individuals both within and outside the entrepreneurial realm. Additionally, we'll provide a platform for non-academic organizations and initiatives that support the youth in their entrepreneurial journeys.

These exchanges and the information we can draw from them seem essential to us to adapt and anticipate entrepreneurial education. This calls for many questions, research, and case studies, here are some ideas without being exhaustive:

• We want to know more about the figures of this entrepreneur of tomorrow, who is he, who is she? What are his/her knowledge, skills, and attitudes? How is his/her project different? For what impacts?
• What are the motivations of future entrepreneurs, their values, their motivations, their commitment, their vision of the world, the project, themselves?
• We also expect local case studies describing the specifics of entrepreneurship, and what supports young people in these approaches with micro, meso, and macro insights.
• We want to identify ecosystem dynamics likely to support transitions and those that hinder them. What are the structural, interactional, temporal, and spatial dimensions of those ecosystems?
• We want to understand the nature of interactions with stakeholders, what are their expectations, their openness or their resistance to change? How to convince them?
• How are entrepreneurs perceived in their territory? What is their place, how does it evolve? What are the representations and emerging myths? What are the social expectations and barriers to be lifted?
• Beyond economic and financial criteria, what other criteria are used to convince of the merits of the project? What about other criteria from, for example, ecological and social accounting, the informal sector, or the development of non-technical skills (communication, collaboration, problem-solving, creativity, etc.)?
• How do these new ideas spread in society, what are the variations of the message (nature, communication vector, coding, context, etc.) that allow the propagation of ideas?
• How do some entrepreneurs manage to spread their impact project?
• How to adapt entrepreneurial education and support project leaders? What knowledge, skills, and attitudes need to be developed? How to integrate these teachings into our institutions?
• What roles for teachers and supporters? What commitment on their part?

The scientific committee welcomes both conceptual proposals and empirical research, encompassing both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Cross-cutting approaches, calling on diversity, and multidisciplinarity, in the fields of anthropology, sociology, earth, life sciences, and philosophy to better understand what is at stake around the entrepreneur of the future are welcome and will allow us to think about our "Together". The conference is also widely open to young people and all non-scientific organizations or approaches undertaken to support this youth in their ecosystem. Welcoming "elsewhere" requires us to discuss the new knowledge we are capable of producing but also the always necessary ones, research avenues to explore, collaborations to engage, impacts of our work, and indicators to support them. To imagine the entrepreneur of the future together, we want the most interactive possible session formats. The idea is to engage the future based on current research and write a research agenda together. The conference format is deliberately open to engage in conversation. Workshops and communications can be in French or English.

Eberhart, R. N., Barley, S., & Nelson, A. (2022). Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose: Entrepreneurialism and the changing nature of employment relations. In Entrepreneurialism and Society: New Theoretical Perspectives (Vol. 81, pp. 13-41). Emerald Publishing Limited.

Bibeau, J., & Meilleur, R. (2022). Sens et Dialogue: forces motrices d’un modèle pédagogique innovant. Entreprendre & Innover, 52(1), 16-27.

 Is Gen Z the spark we need to see the light? (Ernst & Young, 2021)

Byrne, J., Shantz, A., & Bullough, A. (2023). What about us? Fostering authenticity in entrepreneurship education. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 22(1), 4-31.

 Youth4climate : https://www.un.org/fr/climatechange/youth-in-action/voices-and-stories

 Berger-Douce, S., Coeurderoy, R., Constantinidis, C., Favre-Bonté, V., Germain, O., Guieu, G., ... & Verstraete, T. (2023). PME et entrepreneuriat: ajuster la recherche aux réalités sociales, environnementales et économiques du monde des affaires en transformation. Revue internationale PME, 36(1), 6-25.

Stam, E., & Van de Ven, A. (2021). Entrepreneurial ecosystem elements. Small Business Economics, 56, 809-832.

Durkheim, E. (1995). Sociology. Its subject, method, mission. V: Sociology. Its subject, method, mission. Moscow: Kanon Publ.

Cohen-Chen, S., Halperin, E., Crisp, R. J., & Gross, J. J. (2014). Hope in the Middle East: Malleability beliefs, hope, and the willingness to compromise for peace. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5(1), 67-75.

See “The Social Business Initiative of the European Commission 2014”

Boullier, D. (2023). Propagations: un nouveau paradigme pour les sciences sociales. Armand Colin.

Lubinski, C., Wadhwani, R. D., Gartner, W. B., & Rottner, R. (2023), op.cit.

“Creating a better world together” is the title of the international conference 2022, AoM,  Seattle.

See special issues: AoM Perspectives, « Doomsday scenarios: managing in the Age of Black Swans, Issues 1 & 2 », 2020 et 2022

Rambaud, A., & Richard, J. (2015). The “Triple Depreciation Line” instead of the “Triple Bottom Line”: towards a genuine integrated reporting. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 33, 92-116.

Bourrier, Y. (2019). Diagnostic et prise de décision pédagogique pour la construction de compétences non-techniques en situation critique (Doctoral dissertation, Sorbonne Université).

• PDW, symposium, and research paper proposal: 01/15/2024
• Feedback to authors: 02/15/2024
• Conference dates: from April 15 to 17, 2024

• Conference location:

Université Jean Monnet – Campus Roanne

20, avenue de Paris

42300 ROANNE

France

• Submission methods on the ScienceConf.org platform: https://cree2024.sciencesconf.org
• Registration fee: 250 euros (including materials, coffee breaks, meals, and visit)
• Suggested partner hotel (negotiated prices): coming soon.
• Information about the city of Roanne: coming soon.
• Organizers contact: stephane.foliard@univ-st-etienne.fr