Call for Papers
16th Uddevalla Symposium 2013: Innovation, High-growth Entrepreneurship and Regional Development

June 13-15, 2013

Hosted by: Kauffman Foundation, Kansas City, MO, USA

REMINDER: Deadline for abstract submission is Sunday, January 27, 2013

The critical role of innovation and entrepreneurship in regional economic development in terms of productivity and employment growth has been well documented theoretically as well as empirically by researchers in recent decades. The specific mechanisms through which innovation stimulates regional economic development are less well established. It is often assumed that entrepreneurship in the form of new firm formation and the growth of newly established firms plays a critical role, but how, why, when and under what conditions is less clear. Empirical studies show that a limited share of new business ventures have the capacity to rapidly up-scale and to generate substantial new jobs in the regions where they are launched. From the perspective of regional policy makers, this implies that it is critical to understand what regional economic milieus are capable of generating innovations that can be the basis of high-growth entrepreneurship as well as provide the right environment for entrepreneurs to launch entrepreneurial initiatives.

TOPICS: Against this background, we seek papers that, in particular, topics related to exploring:
- Roles of high growth entrepreneurship for regional development
- Heterogeneity of economic milieu characteristics and product development among firms in different regions
- Characteristics of regional economic milieus capable of generating high-growth entrepreneurship
- Roles of the regional economic milieu for launching entrepreneurial initiatives
- Characteristics of the entrepreneurs that launch entrepreneurial initiatives and are successful in turning them into high-growth firms
- Roles of the business cycle for the emergence of high-growth entrepreneurship
- Characteristics of the business opportunities, and, in particular, innovations that form the basis for high-growth entrepreneurship
- Regional innovation policies that can stimulate the development of innovations that can form the basis for high-growth entrepreneurship
- Regional policy measures that aim to stimulate high-growth entrepreneurship in different regional economic milieus
- Policies to better support existing small and medium-sized enterprises and entrepreneurs to improve the likelihood of them becoming high-growth firms
- Firms' assimilation of innovations to become high-growth entrepreneurial firms, and
- The support of high-growth entrepreneurship in urban and rural economic milieus

The themes are divided into one overall theme and several special sub-themes/mini-tracks.

CO-OPERATING ORGANIZATIONS: The Kauffman Foundation, Kansas City, MO will host this years' Uddevalla Symposium, organized by the University West, Trollhattan, Sweden in co-operation with University of Indiana, Institute for Development Strategies, USA.

FURTHER INFORMATION: Visit http://www.symposium.hv.se for more information.