Thursday, October 10, 2019

“Jesus as innovator” conference paper acceptance

A few years ago, I began a research conversation with Dr Christine Woods, a Professor at the Business School at Auckland University. We had a mutual interest in social entrepreneurship and a shared question: does Christian faith offer anything to innovation? What in Christian resources might encourage the making of all things new?

One of the first tangible fruits of our shared conversation is the acceptance of a paper for United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship 2020 conference. It’s a new space for me, but really interesting to see what might happen as Jesus is made present in this sort of context.

Title: Jesus as innovator: engaging in missional entrepreneurship

Keywords: Mission entrepreneurship, innovation, Christianity, opportunity

Abstract: Discussion on spirituality in entrepreneurship is an emergent area of research (Balog, Baker, & Walker, 2014). We explore one specific form of spiritual entrepreneurship: mission entrepreneurship, understood as realizing opportunities to bring about change inspired by Christ. We contend that a Christology of entrepreneurship can be found in the six images of innovation emerging from a biblical exegesis of 1 Corinthians 3, 4: serving, gardening, building, resourcing, risking and parenting. We discuss how these images form a framework that can be used as a pedagogical tool, and how the framework combines with the conventional idea to opportunity entrepreneurship process.

Acceptance involved not only an abstract, but also a 1,000 word summary in which we outlined our

  • research question – what understanding can we then draw of an engagement with entrepreneurship from God’s word?
  • methodology – “connectional methodology” from Paul Fiddes (Seeing the World and Knowing God, 2013)
  • contribution to entrepreneurship research – a Christology of entrepreneurship and innovation of six Christian acts of innovation – serving, gardening, building, researching, risking and parenting.

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The 2020 United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference is in New Orleans in January and Christine will be taking this one for the team!

Balog, A. M., Baker, L. T., & Walker, A. G. (2014). Religiosity and spirituality in entrepreneurship: a review and research agenda. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 11(2), 159–186.

Taylor, Steve, Built for change: A practical theology of innovation and collaboration, 2016.

Posted by steve at 02:56 PM

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