About the UEI Research School

Entrepreneurship and innovation research has long been shaped by conventional models emphasizing high-growth technology ventures (Colombo & Grilli, 2010; Hamilton et al., 2025; Kazanjian & Drazin, 1990; Siegel et al., 1993), linear innovation processes (Buijs, 2003; Godin, 2006; Kline, 1985), and entrepreneurs portrayed as rational, opportunity-driven actors (Kuckertz et al., 2023; Shane & Venkataraman, 2001; Shane, 2003). While influential, these models capture only a restricted view of entrepreneurial and innovative realities, and leave many forms of entrepreneurial action and innovation processes unexplored. This conference invites scholars to shift the focus toward unconventional entrepreneurship and innovation. By unconventional, we refer to entrepreneurial (Bakker & McMullen, 2023; Guercini & Cova, 2018; Pagano et al., 2018) and innovative practices (Berkes & Gaetani, 2021; Steiner, 1995; Yang et al., 2023) that emerge outside dominant models (Balconi et al., 2010), standardized processes, and institutionalized settings. These practices are often informal, frugal, improvised, emotionally driven, and shaped by constraint, crisis, and uncertainty. Although widespread, they remain under-theorized and weakly recognized in mainstream research (Micheli et al., 2022; Nason et al., 2026), as they often involve atypical entrepreneurship (Nevo, 2025; Soares et al., 2025) and innovation dynamics (Garud & Karnøe, 2003). This first edition aims to create a space for dialogue around these overlooked forms, including entrepreneurship and innovation in crisis situations (Klyver & McMullen, 2025; Shepherd, 2020), wartime (Rugina& Klyver, 2025; Salvi, et al., 2025) and post-disaster contexts (Boudreaux et al., 2022; Cordero, 2023), and overseas or island territories (Cowling et al., 2024; Freitas, 2024; Kuebart et al., 2025), where unconventional dynamics remain particularly understudied.

This conference focuses on entrepreneurship and innovation as they unfold in practice, rather than as they are conventionally modeled. We invite contributions engaging with key debates in entrepreneurship and innovation research, including process perspectives, contextual embeddedness, temporality, emotions and intuition, and non-linear dynamics, through topics such as:

• Unconventional forms of entrepreneurship, such as informal, constrained, underground, resilient, or post-traumatic initiatives;
• Innovation processes that are non-linear, relying on bricolage, frugality, improvisation, intuition, emotions, or serendipity;
• Entrepreneurial trajectories shaped by failure or discontinuity, including unlikely or unexpected paths;
• Entrepreneurship and innovation in extreme or disrupted contexts, such as crises, disasters, conflicts, and island or peripheral territories;
• Informal or improvised collectives that generate hidden, frugal, or resilient forms of innovation;
• Alternative sustainability and financing practices and support that operate outside dominant institutional and financial frameworks.

The conference also welcomes work using processual, narrative, ethnographic, experimental, or other non-conventional methods, as well as contributions on unconventional education learning by doing) in entrepreneurship and innovation.

References

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• Balconi, M., Brusoni, S., & Orsenigo, L. (2010). In defence of the linear model: An essay. Research policy, 39(1), 1-13.
• Berkes, E., & Gaetani, R. (2021). The geography of unconventional innovation. The Economic Journal, 131(636), 1466–1514.
• Boudreaux, C. J., Jha, A., & Escaleras, M. (2022). Weathering the storm: How foreign aid and institutions affect entrepreneurship activity following natural disasters. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 46(6), 1843–1868.
• Buijs, J. (2003). Modelling product innovation processes: From linear logic to circular chaos. Creativity and Innovation Management, 12(2), 76–93.
• Colombo, M. G., & Grilli, L. (2010). On growth drivers of high-tech start-ups: Exploring the role of founders' human capital and venture capital. Journal of Business Venturing, 25(6), 610–626.
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• Nason, R., Muñoz, P., Haugh, H., Welter, F., George, G., & Prashantham, S. (2026). Recalibrating entrepreneurship research: Decolonizing and embracing the pluralism of entrepreneurial activity. Journal of Management Studies, 63(1), 1–21.
• Nevo, S. (2025). Atypical entrepreneurs in the venture idea elaboration phase. Journal of Business Venturing, 40(2), 106466.
• Polishchuk, Y., Kornyliuk, A., Lavreniuk, V., Horbov, V., Ivashchenko, A., & Tepliuk, M. (2024). Running a business during wartime: Voice of Ukrainian displaced business. Problems and Perspectives in Management, 22(3), 287.
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• Salvi, E., Hechavarria, D. M., & Gimenez-Jimenez, D. (2025). Opportunity amidst explosions: How armed conflicts spark informal entrepreneurship in emerging economies. Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 23, e00514.
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• Shane, S., & Venkataraman, S. (2001). Entrepreneurship as a field of research: A response to Zahra and Dess, Singh, and Erikson. Academy of Management Review, 26(1), 13–16.
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• Soares, T., Rocha, R. G., & Pinheiro, P. G. (2025). Entrepreneurial atypical mothers: From fear of failure to self-efficacy. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2025, No. 1, p. 21219). Academy of Management.
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• Williams, T. A., & Shepherd, D. A. (2016). Victim entrepreneurs doing well by doing good: Venture creation and well-being in the aftermath of a resource shock. Journal of Business Venturing, 31(4), 365–387.
• Yang, X., Yang, J., Hou, Y., Li, S., & Sun, S. (2023). Gamification of mobile wallet as an unconventional innovation for promoting Fintech: An fsQCA approach. Journal of Business Research, 155, 113406.