The submission deadline has been extended to
Sunday, December 3rd at 11:59pm ET.

We are pleased to announce that the 2024 Diana International Research Conference will take place in Stockholm, Sweden from June 1-3, 2024, with the theme of “Women’s Entrepreneurship: Implications for Policy”.  

It is well documented that female entrepreneurship contributes remarkably to  economies and societies. The most recent Women’s Entrepreneurship Report 2021/22 (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 2022) stresses the importance of female entrepreneurship as the backbone of economic growth and stability for countries worldwide.  Overall, entrepreneurship almost uniformly is presented as a pathway to provide economic stability for women, and subsequently their families, while also serving as a pathway to political, social and personal empowerment.   

To this end, countries world-wide have created policies to encourage, support and scale entrepreneurship and economic development. "Policy is the domain in which designated actors (legislators) propose and enact solutions to public problems" (Brush & Greene, 2016).  Overall, governments and NGOs around the world present messaging and promote activities to support women’s entrepreneurial development as a key element for building economies. Some consider policy to be the most important component of an entrepreneurial ecosystem (Foss et al., 2019). As such, regulatory domains may be viewed quite broadly, including issues of taxation, financial services, telecommunications, transportation, labor markets, immigration, industry support, education and training, infrastructure, and health (Mazzarol, 2014). Worldwide policies directed at women entrepreneurs run the gamut from tax relief to seed financing, training and education, family leave and child-care (Greene & Brush, 2023; Coleman, et al., 2019).  

But, despite the popularity and proliferation of policies for women entrepreneurs and women’s entrepreneurship, there remain challenges because the narratives informing policy may be based on outdated assumptions (e.g., that all women entrepreneurs are disadvantaged), the implications can be vague, and the impact on life opportunities and equality may be unclear (Greene & Brush, 2023; Henry et al., 2017; Foss, et al, 2018).  Also, many countries struggle how to approach the topic of women business owners in the context of women in the labor force -- employer and/or employee?  And finally, questions exist as to the necessary mix of blanket and specialized policies to address the intersectionality of the demographics of women business owners – and their businesses.    

Better connecting academic research to policy is a means to enhance and improve success of women entrepreneurs. Building on this new reality, the 2024 Conference seeks conceptual and empirical papers that consider women’s entrepreneurship with regards to policy formation, implementation, impact and measurement. More specifically, research examining policy formation, implementation, and impact across all aspects of women’s entrepreneurship is welcome for the Diana Conference 2024.

More specifically, invited topics on policy implications include: 

• Women’s entrepreneurship in and across contexts: global, multi-cultural, geographic, community, family, industrial, sectoral, cultural and institutional
  
• Women - led businesses: characteristics (e.g., size, technology, innovation, form, growth trajectory) 
• Women entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial processes: organizing, launching, developing, financing, managing, growing and exiting  
• Intersections of individual and social differences for women entrepreneurs: skills, competencies, race, class, ethnicity, socio-cultural, experiences, education 
• Women entrepreneurs as employers and employees, e.g., where and how women entrepreneurs fit into the labor force 
• Women entrepreneurship policies: Requirements and lessons for successful policy transfer.

We encourage papers that explore new research ideas, adopt novel methodological approaches and contribute to theory development to help advance the field and pave the way for an exciting future research agenda for the Diana community.  

Hosted by ESBRI in Stockholm, Sweden, the 2024 Diana Conference will provide scholars with an exciting new conference experience. Delegates will have opportunities to participate in a range of innovative sessions comprising plenaries, facilitated critical synopsis, roundtable and themed panel discussions. There will also be opportunities for scholars to debate early-stage - novel but potentially ground-breaking research ideas - with the international Diana community. 

Hosted by Babson College and ESBRI, the 2024 Diana Conference will provide scholars with an exciting new conference experience. Delegates will have opportunities to participate in a range of innovative sessions comprising plenaries, facilitated critical synopsis, roundtable and themed panel discussions. There will also be opportunities for scholars to debate early-stage - novel but potentially ground-breaking research ideas - with the international Diana community.

Registration opens in March 2024.

Publication Opportunities:

Consistent with previous Diana Conferences, the 2024 hosts will seek to organise one or more journal special issues and a book. Further details will be posted to the Diana website in due course.

Best paper prizes will be announced and awarded at the Diana Celebration Dinner.

Conference Chairs

• Candida Brush, Babson College, US 
• Amanda Elam, Babson College, US 
• Magnus Aronsson, ESBRI, Sweden 
• Malin Malmstrom, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden 
• Friederike Welter, University of Siegen, Germany and IfM Bonn, Germany
• Christine Woods, University of Auckland, New Zealand