Workshops > Workshop on Entrepreneurial Finance During a Period of Crises

This workshop will allow researchers and practitioners discuss and exchange with colleagues from around the world in the field of Entrepreneurial Finance, with special emphasize on "Entrepreneurial Finance in an Extended Period of Crises". But all areas of Entrepreneurial Finance are eligible.

Chairs: Prof.  Alexander Groh (EMLYON Business School), Prof. Denis Schweizer (John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, CA), Prof. Christina Günther (WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, Germany) and Silvio Vismara (University of Bergamo, Italy)

The world has been hit by the outbreak of the COVID 19 pandemic in 2020 causing too many fatalities and severe personal and economic damage. In February 2022, after about 8 billion people had received a COVID-19 vaccine, and the epidemic seemed to be overcome, Ukraine has been invaded by the Russian army. This conflict did not only yield humanitarian and refugee crises, but also had, among others, major effects on global markets, stock markets, energy costs, and food supply. In most countries, the monetary policy response to these crises was to keep interest rates at low levels and to provide financial support to households and companies to minimize layoffs during lockdown periods and to avoid widespread bankruptcies and potential contagion effects. This policy substantially increased the money supply resulting in demand-pull inflation. At the same time, supply was globally constrained by worker shortages and the disruption of complex supply chains. In addition, China’s strict “Zero-Covid Policy” led to long lockdowns and quarantine measures and consequently to delays at ports and manufacturing hubs, and thus further constrained supply. Rising energy, commodity, and food prices, caused by the war in Ukraine, paired with about eightfolded container freight rates fueled inflation to levels that most countries have not seen, at least for a long time. The primary monetary reaction to high inflation rates was quantitative tightening at unprecedented speed, thus risking a deeper recession. The first visible effects, triggered by increased interest rates, were bank failures and bailouts, as, e.g., of the Silicon Valley Bank or the Signature Bank as well as the emergency merger between Credit Swiss and UBS. The turmoil is not expected to be over but rather to continue and to cause mistrust in the banking sector, tighter credit standards and thus, a reduced lendingactivity.

In summary, the last three years have arguably been very challenging for the global economy at large. However, the COVID pandemic, the Ukraine war, suppressed supply chains, demand-pull inflation, and sharp increases in the cost of capital affected entrepreneurial ecosystems and access to finance for young ventures and SMEs in particular. The collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank, which was a prominent start-up investor, paralleled with less optimism in general, could induce an era of contraction in the entrepreneurial finance market. Thus, driven by the extended period of crisis, many business models, young ventures, and SMEs disappeared but new players, financial instruments, entrepreneurial ecosystems, markets, technologies, cryptocurrencies, or payment systems with disruptive potential emerged or will emerge and will probably reshape the entrepreneurial finance landscape. The extended crisis has changed the world, and some of these changes are expected to persist. 

The entrepreneurship research community already collected a variety of insights into how the COVD-19 pandamic affected entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in general within the scope of e.g. the 2021 Small Business Economics special issue on “Economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on entrepreneurship and small businesses.” This call extends and complements these insights by moving beyond the COVID-19 pandemic's immediate / short-term consequences and options to counterbalance this external shock and instead a) pays attention to the pandemic’s longer term effects on entrepreneurship, b) incorporates the described interrelated and overlapping set of crises entrepreneurs face, and c) focuses on entrepreneurial finance during periods of crises in particular.

This workshop is related to the special issue "Entrepreneurial Finance in an Extended Period of Crisis" in the Small Business Economics and aims at collecting timely work, focused on the topic of entrepreneurial finance following a clear timeline. Authors will not only benefit from peer-feedback during two events / paper development workshops, but also from the guest editorial teams’ guidance as well as referee feedback. This structured publication process with multiple feedback rounds and personal interaction, is geared towards an expeditious publication process.

Potential Topics
We aim to address fundamental entrepreneurial finance-related questions brought forward by the various crises in this special issue and motivate submissions of original research papers on the following topics:

Period of crises and longer term effects on entrepreneurship:

• Do entrepreneurs take advantage of “Impact Investments” during periods of crises?
• How does input and output price volatility affect young venture’s and SMEs’ production scheduling, pricing, and employment strategy?
• Did the COVID-19-related lockdown foster digital transformation by FinTechs?
• Do these crises have an impact on equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in young ventures, SMEs, or in the companies backing them?
• Relocation of entrepreneurial and financial ecosystems
• Disruption of supply chains and its impact on SMEs ‘and young ventures’ decision making
• Do principles of economics of geography still apply after extended periods of stay-at-home orders, new technologies as well as working from home?

Impact of interrelated and overlapping set of crises on entrepreneurs

• Can start-up/SME investors still effectively exit from their investments?
• The development of FinTechs during an extended period of crises
• How did crypto-assets, information technology, and the related trends of capital-raising mechanisms change against the background of the ongoing and overlapping crises?
• Mid-term impact and effectiveness of COVID-related government support programs
• Corporate planning of distribution, financing, production, ingoing logistics, and risk management during an extended period of crises
• Impact and challenges of new venture creation and growth during an extended period of crises

Crises effect on financial markets

• How does the extended period of crises affect investment decisions of start-up and expansion investors?
• What is its impact on the access to finance and the cost of capital for young ventures and SMEs?
• Did the crises change the negotiation power and equilibrium in the entrepreneurial finance market? If yes, how do/did the players react to such changes?
• Does alternative funding, e.g., crowdfunding or token offerings, replace “traditional” entrepreneurial finance channels? If yes, is the current state of regulation sufficient?
• Is Decentralized Finance (DeFi) a true and really new alternative to raise capital, e.g., through Initial Farm Offerings (IFOs)?

Submission Deadline: May 31, 2023

The workshop is in cooperation with a Special Issue in in Small Business Economics. 

Contact the chairperson to submit your paper to this workshop: denis.schweizer@concordia.ca

Please click here for the Call for Papers!