Seminar 1: July 20-25, 2025 in Copenhagen
Student Experience
“This course was quite all-encompassing and a very good opportunity to develop a better overview of the literature.”
“One of the main strengths of the class, for me, was the size. It was the perfect number of people to introduce a variety of perspectives, while allowing everyone to share their thoughts. The atmosphere you create by encouraging/directing the discussion really made it engaging.”
“Professor Tom Lumpkin’s doctoral seminar gave me a fantastic grounding in social entrepreneurship research. It has also provided me with a great network of scholars working in the field. As a doctoral student, I left the seminar with a clearer understanding of (1), what work I would like to focus on during my PhD and (2), what type of academic I aspire to become. I therefore, highly recommend this seminar to doctoral students and academics interested in researching social entrepreneurship.”
“[The seminar] was one of those courses where everything just came together and made all my other courses make sense.”
“It was a unique and wonderful academic experience for me… The selection of papers was quite special, giving students who want a real immersion into the SE subject an opportunity to learn fast about what is out there and the main discussions around SE.”
“Would I recommend the course to a colleague? YES. It is so rare to find a place where SE research is approached well… I really enjoyed the structure and content of the 10 sessions.”
Published Papers by Students Who Met in the SE Seminar
Dwyer, S. M., Lerman, M., Gras, D. (2023). When the going gets tough: Stressors and purpose in life among social and commercial entrepreneurs. Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 20, e00434.
O’Donnell, P., Leger, M., O’Gorman, C., & Clinton, E. (2023). Necessity entrepreneurship. Academy of Management Annals.
Ghosh Moulick, A., Alexiou, K., Dowin Kennedy, E., & Parris, D. L. (2020). A total eclipse of the heart: compensation strategies in entrepreneurial nonprofits. Journal of Business Venturing, 35(4), 105950.
Mendoza-Abarca, K. I., & Gras, D. (2019). The performance effects of pursuing a diversification strategy by newly founded nonprofit organizations. Journal of Management, 45(3), 984-1008.
Bacq, S., & Alt, E. (2018). Feeling capable and valued: A prosocial perspective on the link between empathy and social entrepreneurial intentions. Journal of Business Venturing, 33(3), 333-350.
Craig, J., Parris, D., Newbert, S., & Moores, K. (2018). All the same but different: Understanding family enterprise heterogeneity. In E. Memili & C. Dibrell (Eds.), Heterogeneity among Family Firms. New York, NY: Palgrave.
Nason, R., Bacq, S., & Gras, D. (2018). A behavioral theory of social performance: Social identity and stakeholder expectations. Academy of Management Review, 43(2), 259-283.
Parris, D., Alexiou, K., Dowin Kennedy, E., & Linnane, M. A. (2018). Start with what you have: A leader’s path to innovation. Organization Dynamics, 47(4), 219-228.
Alt, E., & Craig, J. B. (2016). Selling issues with solutions: Igniting social intrapreneurship in for‐profit organizations. Journal of Management Studies, 53(5), 794-820.
Gras, D., & Mendoza-Abarca, K. I. (2014). Risky business? The survival implications of exploiting commercial opportunities by nonprofits. Journal of Business Venturing, 29(3), 392-404.
Chalmers, D. M., & Balan-Vnuk, E. (2013). Innovating not-for-profit social ventures: Exploring the microfoundations of internal and external absorptive capacity routines. International Small Business Journal, 31(7), 785-810.
Lumpkin, G. T., Moss, T. W., Gras, D. M., Kato, S., & Amezcua, A. S. (2013). Entrepreneurial processes in social contexts: How are they different, if at all? Small Business Economics, 40(3), 761-783.
Former Seminar Panelists
Julie Battilana, Harvard University
Lowell Busenitz, University of Oklahoma
Justin Craig, Bond University
Tina Dacin, Queen’s University
Tom Dean, Colorado State University
Andreana Drencheva, King's College London
Steffen Farny, Leuphana University of Lüneburg
David Gras, University of Tennessee
Jessica Jones, University of Tennessee
Rachida Justo, IE Business School
Geoffrey Kistruck, York University
Gorgi Krlev, ESCP Paris
Matt Lee, Harvard University
Gideon Markman, Colorado State University
Jeffery McMullen, Indiana University
Todd Moss, University of Oklahoma
Pablo Munoz, Durham University
Scott Newbert, Baruch College
Ana Maria Peredo, University of Ottawa
Jill Purdy, University of Washington Tacoma
Maija Renko, Aalto University
Ute Stephan, King's College London
David Townsend, Virginia Tech
Paul Tracey, University of Cambridge
Justin Webb, University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Trent Williams, Brigham Young University
Jeff York, University of Colorado Boulder
Seminar
Overview
Important Dates:
Application deadline: February 1, 2025
Acceptance notification: March 1, 2025
First deliverables due: July 1, 2025
This seminar is designed as a broad survey of major and foundational topics in the field of social entrepreneurship (SE). Its objectives are three-fold:
To familiarize you with some of the core concepts and primary theoretical underpinnings of the social entrepreneurship field
To help you gain a stronger understanding of, and think critically about, the SE domain, including its research requirements and methods for publishing scholarly research
To provide a forum where you can further develop the writing skills you will need as a social entrepreneurship scholar
Class sessions will be devoted to reviewing and critiquing readings associated with major topics in the field including an overview of social entrepreneurship and the ongoing debate about SE definitions, and key concepts related to social entrepreneurship including social value creation, SE at different levels of analysis, nonprofit and for-profit organizations, hybrid organizing, social impact measurement, and alternative theoretical lenses through which to view SE research.
To learn more, including application instructions and course details, please contact us.
Faculty
Professor Sophie Bacq
Contact
History of the SE Seminar
By 2009, it was clear that social entrepreneurship (SE) had become an important topic for scholarly research. Young scholars and doctoral students were especially interested in the topic, making it an ideal subject for a doctoral seminar. But as a specialty area within the entrepreneurship domain, it was hard to imagine how one university might generate enough doctoral student enrollments to justify a whole semester class.
A one-week intensive doctoral seminar format offered during the summer had proven to be an effective way to engage an international audience. Students would be asked to complete readings ahead of time, and then write a paper after the seminar, thus fulfilling the contact hours requirements for a 3 credit hour course. It seemed to be worth a try, so Tom Lumpkin piloted the idea at Syracuse University in the summer of 2010.
The class was deemed a success, so we decided to launch it on a larger scale. We also decided to open a few slots to faculty who might like to learn about the burgeoning SE field. Because the Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference (BCERC) was to be held at Syracuse University in the summer of 2011, we decided to offer it the week following BCERC in Syracuse.
Buoyed by the 2011 success, the initial plan was to always pair the seminar with BCERC. But because students from many backgrounds, not just entrepreneurship, were interested in enrolling, we decided to link the seminar to the Academy of Management (AOM) meeting instead and to reach out to multiple AOM Divisions to recruit students. This arrangement also created an opportunity to invite SE scholars attending AOM to participate in a panel discussion and then join the class for a closing dinner.
Over the years, a number of universities have considered hosting a separate offering of the seminar – in Europe or Asia. So far, that has only happened in the US – at the University of Louisville in 2017 and 2019. But the interest in trying other venues led to the decision to pair the seminar with BCERC again in 2018 so it could be offered in Ireland – the first time outside North America. As of today, we have linked the seminar to BCERC three times and AOM six times.
Due to Covid-19, plans to hold the one-week seminar prior to AOM in Vancouver were scrapped but a three-week online version was offered to University of Oklahoma students in July, 2020. By the summer of 2021, conditions were improving so we decided to offer an in-person version at an easy to reach city in North America – Chicago. Due to the Covid-19 surge and persistent restrictions, only five students, all studying in the U.S., were able to attend in person.
In 2022, thanks to increased interest, we began offering the seminar twice each year. With sponsorship from the University of Pretoria and the University of Cape Town, we offered the seminar on the UCT campus in Cape Town, South Africa in June, 2022. We also resumed the practice of linking the seminar to annual conferences and, with the sponsorship of Indiana University, offered the seminar in Seattle following the annual Academy of Management meeting in August, hosted by the University of Washington.
In 2023, Sophie Bacq became lead faculty, and the home institution for the seminar shifted to IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland.
SE Doctoral Seminars, 2010-2024
*2010 | Syracuse, NY - Syracuse University
*2011 | Syracuse, NY - Syracuse University
**2012 | Boston, MA - Northeastern University
**2013 | Orlando, FL - Fairfield Inn
**2014 | Philadelphia, PA - Villanova University
*2015 | Vancouver, BC - Simon Fraser University
**2016 | Anaheim, CA - Homewood Suites
*2017 | Louisville, KY - University of Louisville
*2017 | Norman, OK - University of Oklahoma
**2018 | Dublin, Ireland - Dublin City University
*2019 | Louisville, KY - University of Louisville
***2019 | Cambridge, MA - Harvard University
*2020 | Norman, OK - University of Oklahoma
***2021 | Chicago, IL - Hilton Garden Inn
***2022 | Cape Town, South Africa - University of Cape Town
***2022 | Seattle, WA - University of Washington
***2023 | Knoxville, TN - University of Tennessee
***2023 | Boston, MA - Harvard University
° 2024 | Munich, Germany - Technical University of Munich
°° 2024 | Chicago, IL - DePaul University
*Taught by Tom Lumpkin
**Taught by Tom Lumpkin; Co-Taught with Justin Craig
***Taught by Tom Lumpkin; Co-Taught with Sophie Bacq
° Taught by Sophie Bacq
°° Taught by Sophie Bacq; Co-Taught with Elisa Alt
Future Scheduled Seminars
July 20-25, 2025 | Copenhagen, Denmark - Copenhagen Business School
August 31-September 5, 2025 | Lausanne, Switzerland - IMD
View past participants in the SE Doctoral Seminar