Dear all
See AAG call for papers below which may be of interest to some! Pls reply
directly to the session organisers!
Neil Coe
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Call for Papers: AAG Boston, 15-19 April
Temporary Coalitions, Female Entrepreneurship and Wealth Creation
Convenors: John Bryson, Michael Carroll, Neil Reid and Michael Taylor
Research interest in the diversity of enterprises that contribute to wealth
creation is developing into an extremely productive area of human geography.
Diversity in the economy can produce vitality as well as enhance inclusion by
ensuring that people from a range of backgrounds participate in the wealth
creation process. There are many different 'others' participating in the wealth
creation process and it is important that academics do not engage in a process
of 'othering' groups that may be under-represented in the academic literature.
This session is concerned with exploring the process of wealth creation through
the medium of firms populated by people coming together to combine expertise
and skills. These temporary coalitions are frequently obscured by the concept
of the firm as it is all too simple for academics and policy makers to treat
the firm as the basis unit of analysis. Firms, however, hide diversity and
complexity.
This session seeks to explore the firm as a temporary coalition, but with a
specific focus on the role played by women in wealth creation. The focus is on
the often hidden indirect and direct contributions that women make to the
wealth creation process in a variety of settings. Many apparently 'male' run
businesses are only competitive and survive because significant elements of the
firm's functions are performed by women. Academics and policy-makers wilfully
misinterpret the structure of many organisations as predominantly being run and
controlled by men. In many accounts of small business behaviour the male owner
is considered to be the key actor while women are neglected are considered to
play a supporting role and not part of the strategic coalition that runs small
firms. Firm should be conceived as consisting of a temporary coalition of
individuals - both male and female - rather than a productive venture run by a
single, and often male, entrepreneur; the renaissance man that the literature
has been transfixed by for the last few decades. Women's role in these
coalitions have almost always been seen as subordinate, notwithstanding the
pivotal tasks they perform including the negotiation of financial and other
contracts upon which the enterprise depends.
This session will explore the contribution women make to wealth creation in a
variety of settings.
This session aims to:
* develop a theoretical contribution to conceptualizing firms as temporary
coalition
* explore the multiple ways in which women contribute both directly and
indirectly to the process of wealth creation.
* develop a strand in economic geography that explores the geographies of
self-employed women and those involved with the direct and indirect management
of small and medium sized enterprises.
Please send an abstract of 150 words (maximum) to us by the deadline of 10th
October 2007.
Please forward these to John Bryson ([log in to unmask]) or Neil Reid
([log in to unmask]). For queries please write directly to John or Neil.
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