Dear Friends and Colleagues,
10th International Entrepreneurship Forum (IEF) Conference
It is with great pleasure that I invite you to attend the 10th anniversary conference of the IEF to be held in Bahrain on 9-11 January, 2011.
This year’s conference theme ‘Entrepreneurship and Society’ goes right to the core of entrepreneurship and innovation – their special value in changing, shaping and creating society. At a time of widespread uncertainty, and the abject failure of many of our institutions, many questions are asked about our approach to economic growth and social upheaval. We need a heightened sense of opportunity generation and its realisation in different environments. The need for realignment of strategic thinking and operational arrangements as part of a value creation process in organisations, habitats and through connections between people, calls for a re-envisioning of society along entrepreneurial lines. Entrepreneurship and innovation can, therefore, mean much more than simply new business creation. It must accommodate the way we look and examine at a range of activities, events, organisational arrangements, and behaviour, which create new social and economic structures to enable us to work productively and efficaciously with change. It means creating a better awareness of the nexus of entrepreneurial values in global politics, a better form of engagement with our environment, and the re-organisation of our institutions to foster diverse forms of new opportunity creation, and the reform of our social structures, norms and values.
Bahrain is a unique microcosm of entrepreneurial change. Our co-operation with Tamkeen fosters co-operative change. We hope you will join us in an environment which is conducive to debate and discussion of these issues, examine the conceptual underpinnings and the empirical evidence for a holistic approach to entrepreneurship and innovation in our societies.
Please do not hesitate to contact Joanna Pauk (jpauk@essex.ac.uk / cer@essex.ac.uk) for any further information relating to the conference.
