Building a Field
At our inaugural conference in April, one of the speakers commented on the importance of the event as a “field-building” activity. We appreciated the comment because, at the end of the day, that is what we are trying to do. While there have been case studies surrounding communities of faith, very little has been done academically to understand the intersection of faith and entrepreneurship. Given the high percentage of the global population that ascribes to a belief system, to relegate such study to case studies that are few and far between would do a disservice to an “industry” dedicated to increasing knowledge. Therefore, we engage in a number of field-building activities in hopes of bringing faith and entrepreneurship to the forefront of academic study in business, inviting scholars from every belief system to join the conversation.
In April 2021, we held the first L.I.F.E. Research Conference, the first international academic conference on the integration of faith and entrepreneurship. 125 people from 21 countries attended the virtual conference and participated in panel discussions, breakouts, and heard keynote addresses on challenges and opportunities of studying faith and entrepreneurship, the role of faith and entrepreneurship in identity study, publishing faith-related research in top (Financial Times 50) journals, and interdisciplinary angles to understanding faith and entrepreneurship. The main motivation for the conference was to bring together excellent scholars who are interested in this space, to build a community and network, to demonstrate that there is significant interest and opportunity to build the field of faith and entrepreneurship. One institution alone cannot build a field. Seeing scholars from some of the top universities worldwide come together and express their interest in this space was incredibly encouraging. One panelist explained that while he had a strong desire to research faith and entrepreneurship, he had felt alone in that pursuit until attending the conference and realizing there was an expansive network of scholars who also saw value in this study.
Of course, to build a field in academia, you have to have excellent research that reaches a broad audience. One of the panels at the conference focused on this topic specifically. Fortunately, panelists were editors of several prominent entrepreneurship and management journals who could offer helpful insight into publishing faith-related research in top-tier journals. There is a growing collection of faith-related research being published in these journals. Most recently, Journal of Business Venturing published a paper “Toward a theological turn in entrepreneurship: How religion could enable transformative research in our field,” written by L.I.F.E. Founding Director, Brett Smith, and conference speakers Jeffrey McMullen (Indiana University) and Melissa Cardon (University of Tennessee)*, which explores the opportunity and necessity for academics to study faith in entrepreneurship research. Other publications in Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Journal of Business Ethics, Academy of Management Journal, and Academy of Management Review have also begun to shed light on the value of understanding faith in the context of entrepreneurship.
In order to encourage further research, we have compiled an extensive bibliography of academic papers relating to faith and entrepreneurship. This ever-growing list includes scholarship from myriad perspectives, covering a wide variety of topics. Additionally, we send out regular emails featuring important scholarship for the field. These emails contain abstracts and citations of articles, as well as comments from the authors regarding the value of the article for the field writ large. Our hope is that both of these collections will both expand awareness of scholarship and encourage further research. You can access this resource guide and receive our article features by signing up on our home page.
As scholars, we desire to see our research make an impact, which typically manifests in the classroom. You can read about our strategy to “influence the influencers” here, but the summary is that by publishing quality research, professors can point to these studies in the classroom, teaching generations of students about the integration of faith and entrepreneurship—not only so they feel free to incorporate their beliefs in their work, but so they understand and respect those who choose (or not) to do so differently. By teaching the mere fact that much of the world (80%) engages in some level of integration of faith and work, we can prepare those entering the workforce to do so confidently and respectfully.
All of these activities serve to build the field of faith and entrepreneurship. We seek to influence the scholars and students; scholars who produce quality research and students who learn from it and then become practitioners found in qualitative studies of tomorrow. At the end of the day, true field building requires both and we are delighted to be positioned in an academic setting where we can engage with all relevant parties.
*You can find the paper on open access here.
