EABIS has recently welcomed an opportunity offered by strategic partner EFMD to further promote emerging research activity conducted within its network around the subject of Responsible Entrepreneurship. We were very pleased to lend our support to a special issue of “EntreNews”, EFMD’s respected entrepreneurship newsletter, edited by leading expert David Grayson, Chair of the UK Small Business Consortium and a long-standing collaborator in EABIS projects.

Promoting Responsible Entrepreneurship
This special issue of “EntreNews” is devoted to the subject of responsible practice in the entrepreneurial sector. One of the featured highlights is an extensive interview with Maire Rute, Director of Competitiveness for SMEs (EU Commission DG Enterprise). In her comments she places the importance of responsible entrepreneurship for competitive growth in micro-, meso- and macro-level economic contexts, arguing for its potential fit with business support services and articulating the reasoning behind a new grant scheme to promote Corporate Responsibility in small businesses.

Guest Editor David Grayson, Chairman of the UK Small Business Consortium, a director of Business in the Community, and a long-standing contributor to EABIS projects and activities, expressed his pleasure at EFMD’s choice of subject for the special issue. “Corporate Responsibility specialists in business schools do need to work with their colleagues in entrepreneurship and those studying small businesses. If we stimulate a group of isolated responsible SME specialists, we will miss a trick”, he said. “The fact that we are trying, but still struggling, to engage strategy, marketing, OB professors on Corporate Responsibility overall means there may be some ‘lessons learned’, which we would want to avoid this time round. I hope this special edition of 'EntreNews' will help this process.”

EABIS and an Emerging Research Agenda on SMEs in Support of EU Policy
In an article based on the outcomes of the collaborative Knowledge & Learning Network event, which has engaged business practitioners and academic teams throughout the network as well as key figures in the European Commission, Executive Director Peter Lacy identified a list of future research areas. Underlining EABIS’ commitment to lead new initiatives in this domain as part of its portfolio of projects around responsible business practice and theory, he said: “We are planning to develop a comprehensive overview on the current state of knowledge on Corporate Responsibility and SMEs, collaborating closely with thought leaders from a number of organisations in our network. By pinpointing knowledge gaps, priorities and opportunities, EABIS can help to define the research agenda on this vital subject in support of the European Commission’s goals for job creation and economic growth under the 2000 Lisbon Agenda.”

This point was underlined by David Grayson, who added: “EABIS needs to locate the work on responsible and sustainable small business firmly in the context of entrepreneurship and other mainstream business fields. Entrepreneurship is being more and more mainstreamed in business schools after a long battle. It is important that Corporate Responsibility considerations are firmly located in this context and do not become another academic satellite.”

Progress to Date
Thus far Durham Business School and SDA Bocconi in Milan have been at the forefront of the EABIS initiatives around this theme. At a December 2005 gathering held at Durham, sponsored by EABIS’ European Knowledge & Learning Network grants scheme which is actively supported by founding corporate partners IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Shell and Unilever, it was almost universally agreed by participants that there is a pressing need for more and better knowledge around responsible entrepreneurship. One direct result of this was a decision to dedicate one of the 2006 Colloquium specialist tracks to a deeper exploration of Responsible Entrepreneurship.

EABIS Academic Member Copenhagen Business School will take this knowledge development process one step further with an important conference on October 26 that will examine the integration of Corporate Responsibility into Small Business Practice (click here for more details). Also in the autumn, EABIS will jointly sponsor with Durham a special issue of the ‘Journal for Business Ethics’ on this subject, the publication being co-edited by Geoff Moore from Durham and Laura Spence from Brunel Business School in London.

Free Access to the “EntreNews” Special Issue
We are grateful to EFMD for making this publication freely available to all EABIS members. You can now download the PDF version by clicking here.