Dear Colleague

Much has happened within ECSB since our last quarterly email newsletter and this is a wonderful opportunity to share with you the main highlights of the past three months.

In October we held our first Webinar which was on the topic of ‘Writing Case Studies for Teaching Purposes’ and it was attended by 40 participants. In November, Luca Iandoli presented a second Webinar which was entitled ‘When Small Means Complex: Insights from Complexity Science for research in Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management’ and again this proved to be very successful. ECSB is the first of the affiliates within the ICSB global network to introduce such an initiative and the Webinars were provided for FREE as an additional benefit for Members of ECSB. A further three Webinars are planned for the Spring Semester and details will be available on the ECSB website as the details become confirmed.

Another area of high activity in recent months has been events organised at national level by our Country VPs. While the RENT Conference continues to be the flagship event of ECSB, it has become a stated goal of the Board that more events need to be held at local, national and regional levels so as to enable all ECSB Members to actively participate in the network. Since September, ECSB related events have been organised by Country VPs for Iceland, Denmark, Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Romania and Hungary, and these varied according to the needs of the local ECSB Members. It is envisaged that every country will host at least one event during 2010 and again full details will be made available on the ECSB website.

Since the inception of ECSB in 1988, the organisation has operated as a network without an official legal status. Such a position prevents the organisation from applying for EU funding or engaging in any activity where an official legal status is required. The Board has moved to alter this position and the organisation is currently in the process of registering ECSB as a legal entity in Finland (where its Secretariat is located). The official founding meeting was held during the RENT Conference last month and the process will be completed early in the New Year.

It has also been a very sad time as in October we lost Jose Maria Veciana who was a Fellow of ECSB and one its founding members. Jose was a Past President of ECSB, hosted the RENT Conference on two occasions, and he was a great advocate for young researchers having developing initiatives such as the European Doctoral Programme. The Best Paper at the RENT Conference has now been renamed in his honour but we will miss deeply a great friend and colleague.

Finally, may I take this opportunity to wish you ‘Season’s Greetings’. The first decade of the new Millennium has brought many challenges (e.g. 9/11, global recession) but it has also offered many exciting new developments, particularly in the area of entrepreneurship. As we enter into a new decade I hope that you will have a wonderful holiday period and that 2010 will bring you great happiness and success.

Best wishes,
Thomas Cooney

ECSB WISHES ALL ITS MEMBERS A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010!
______________________________________________________________

RENT CONFERENCE 2009

The RENT XXIII Conference took place in Budapest, Hungary, on November 19-20, 2009. The conference was hosted by Corvinus University, Budapest, and co-organised by ECSB and EIASM. The main theme for the conference was"Entrepreneurial Growth of the Firm". The growing participant figures supported RENT’s claim of being the premier European research conference in entrepreneurship. More than 260 registered delegates participated and over 150 papers were presented in the conference.

The winner of the Jose Maria Veciana Best Paper Award was divided into two as the judging panel could not separate two especially high-quality papers: the winners areFranziska Günzel & Helge Wilkerfor their paper "Patterns in Business Models: A Case Survey", and toFaems Dries, Fleur Lamers & Klaasjan Visscherfor their paper "Exploration Patterns in Gazelle Firms: A Multiple Case Study in the Internet Technology Industry".

This year there were three events also organized as part of a pre-conference programme: a Policy Forum “Entrepreneurship Policy in Times of Crisis”, a Doctoral Seminar, and Post-Doctoral Collaborative Research Round-Table. All three pre-events were so successful that they will be organized again in conjunction with the next RENT conference which will take place in Maastricht, the Netherlands.

NOTICE TO ALL NEWLY JOINED MEMBERS! ECSB Secretariat will receive the RENT XXIII participation data soon and will process it after the holidays. After that we will contact all our new members and send you your username and password for the Members area at http://www.ecsb.org. We apologise for the delay and hope that you understand the situation. The next issue of JSBM will be sent to all members in January.

RESULTS OF ECSB SURVEY

The recent ECSB survey provided a tremendous response to our quest to identify areas for development within the activities of the ECSB network. A total of 282 respondents (160 members, 122 non-members) were received and the main findings were as follows:

Members and non-members not fully aware of benefits
• More information required on:
- Conferences / Call for Papers
- Funding database
• Special Interest Groups (Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation, SBM, Regional Develop.)
• Webinars topics to include start-up, innovation, academic entrepreneurship
• Reasons for stopping membership
- Did not attend RENT / ICSB Conference
- Institution will not pay membership fees
• Information to be used to develop ECSB activities

To encourage participation in the survey, we offered one year’s membership to ECSB and the winner wasDzintra Atstajafrom Latvia. A full copy of the results can be found at http://www.ecsb.org/eng/news_&_events/index.php?nid=323.

THE LAUNCH OF THE SIXTH INTER-RENT PUBLICATION

The sixth Inter-RENT“From the University Environment to Academic Entrepreneurship”was officially launched in theRENT XXIIIConference in Budapest, in November 2009. The publication was edited by ECSB Board member, Professor Tõnis Mets.

The authors and articles selected are as follows:

·Einar Rasmussen and Magnus Gulbrandsen:A principal-agent perspective on government support programs to promote academic entrepreneurship: The case of Norway

·Chris Gerry, Carla Susana Marques and Fernanda Nogueira:Graduates & Business Start-Ups: an assessment of entrepreneurial propensity in a Portuguese university

·Sven H. De Cleyn and Johan Braet:Managing intellectual property rights in academic spin-off ventures

·Oscarina Conceição, Margarida Fontes and Teresa Calapez:Commercialisation strategies of research-based spin-offs: the case of companies that operate in the market for technologies

·Jan P. Grundling and Lizl Steynberg:Towards an Academic Entrepreneurship Governance Framework for South African Higher Education

Read more about the Inter-RENT Publication.

ECSB BOARD MEMBERS

The following are the primary responsibilities for each Member of the Board:

• Teaching and Learning – Thomas Cooney (thomas.cooney@dit.ie)
• Marketing and Country VPs – Luca Iandoli (luca.iandoli@unina.it)
• Corporate Affairs – Antti Paasio (antti.paasio@tse.fi)
• Policy - João Leitão (jleitao71@gmail.com)
• Post-Doctoral Career Development - Friederike Welter (friederike.welter@ihh.hj.se)
• Doctoral Network - Helle Neergaard (hen@asb.dk)
• Baltic Region - Tõnis Mets (tonismets@hot.ee)
• Balkan Region – Miroslav Rebernik (rebernik@uni-mb.si)
• Business Community – Anita van Gils (a.vangils@os.unimaas.nl)

We would encourage you to contact any member of the Board if you wish to make an enquiry that is specific to their area of responsibility.

FORTHCOMING ECSB EVENTS

April 14th – 15th 2010
Title:30th International Conference on Entrepreneurship and Innovation - PODIM
Location: Maribor, Slovenia
Organizers: IRP, University of Maribor, JAPTI
Email:rebernik@uni-mb.si
Link:http://www.podim.org

May 20th – 21st 2010
Title:16th Nordic Conference on Small Business Research
Location: Kolding, Denmark
Organisers: University of Southern Denmark
Email:Nordic@ncsb2010.dk
Link:http://www.ncsb2010.dk/

UPCOMING CONFERENCES

USASBE 2010 Conference
Nashville, USA
14 – 17 January 2010
http://www.usasbe.org

The 5th Workshop on Trust Within and Between Organisations
Madrid, Spain
28-29 January 2010
http://www.eiasm.org

EFMD 2010 Entrepreneurship Conference
Paris, France
21 - 23 February 2010
http://www.efmd.org

7th Interdisciplinary European Conference on Entrepreneurship Research
Regensburg, Germany
10-12 March 2010
http://www.iecer.de

The Regional Studies Association: Conference on Gazelles and Regional Development
Glasgow, Scotland
20 - 21 April 2010
http://www.regional-studies-assoc.ac.uk/international-networks/pdfs/Conference_Scotland09.pdf

The Eighteenth Annual High Technology Small Firms Conference
Twente, The Netherlands
27-28 May 2010
http://www.utwente.nl/nikos/events/htsf

Congress of the International Network of Business and Management Journals (INBAM)
Valencia, Spain
1-4 June 2010
http://www.inbam.net

ISPIM Conference
Bilbao, Spain
6-9 June 2010
http://www.ispim.org

ICSB 2010 World Conference
Cincinnati, USA
24 – 27 June 2010
http://www.icsb.org

Entrepreneurship in Rural Regions
Jonkoping, Sweden
19-22 August 2010
http://www.ersa.org

CALL FOR PAPERS

Special Issue Call for Papers from International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research: Special Issue on Strategic Entrepreneurship

This special issue is guest edited by PD Dr. Rainer Harms (University of Twente, The Netherlands), Prof. Steven T. Walsh (University of New Mexico), and Prof. Dr. Aard Groen (University of Twente, The Netherlands).

Submission will be in a 2-stage process, with all stages based on a double-blind review process. First, we invite abstracts on the proposed paper until 15. March 2010. The authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to develop their papers further and to present their findings at the International High Tech Small Firms Conference, May 2010, in Enschede, the Netherlands (attendance suggested). Second, we invite the authors of accepted abstracts to submit a full paper until 15. November 2010.

Abstracts must be submitted by March 15th, 2010, to Rainer Harms:r.harms@utwente.nl

2010 ICSB World Conference: Register Today!

The ICSB World Conference provides a unique opportunity to network, share and learn about best practices in small business and entrepreneurship education, research, innovation and technology commercialization, policy-making, outreach programs and much, much more. We invite you to submit your paper, workshop & symposium proposals to be presented during the conference today. The conference will be held in Cincinnati, Ohio USA from June 24-27 2010 and will attract approximately 400 delegates from over 60 different countries.Submit your paper and register here ...

USASBE 2010 Conference: A Time to Sing a New Tune
The annual USASBE conference is the premier gathering of entrepreneurship scholars and educators in the United States. It is also a great place to learn of best practices in entrepreneurship education and program development, with recognition given annually to the model academic programs, pedagogy, and outreach efforts in the United States. The 2010 USASBE Conference will be held in Nashville, Tennessee USA from January 14-17 2010.Register for the conference here...

Submit your News to ICSB Today!
Starting this month, ICSB is proud to introduce our new, online news form that will allow the International Office to collect and publish your news stories each month. The online form is simple and easy to use. We encourage all ICSB members from around the world to submit your news items today and have them distributed around the world tomorrow!Submit a news article here…