The vision of the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management is to grow entrepreneurship scholars. The Division, therefore, seeks to promote excellence in entrepreneurship research across multiple scholarly disciplines. To motivate such scholarly growth both increased visibility and increased availability of help become the focus. Accordingly, in this effort to both honor entrepreneurship research excellence and serve as a catalyst to increase the volume and quality of manuscript flow of top-tier entrepreneurship research, the Division has launched "The Entrepreneurship Research Excellence Initiative (EREI). EREI is currently comprised of The IDEA Awards and the Entrepreneurship Research Exemplars Conference.

The IDEA Awards (Celebrated Annually in August of each year at AoM)

     The IDEA Awards are a yearly gathering of research pioneers, thought leaders, emerging scholars, and key editors representing top tier journals where increasing excellence in entrepreneurship research impacts multi-disciplinary fields. The IDEA Awards honor research excellence across and beyond the Entrepreneurship Division in the following categories: Foundational Paper Research; Thought Leader Research; and Research Promise Scholarship.

The Entrepreneurship Research Exemplars Conference (Held in May)

     The Entrepreneurship Research Exemplars Conference is a "new-format" invited best practices conference. It intention is to advance top-tier research in entrepreneurship. In May 2009 the conference was held at the University of Connecticut. The conference featured two types of sessions.

Journal Editors and Authors Panels

     Each of these sessions were designed around a panel of editors from top-tier general management and specialty entrepreneurship journals who introduced one or two recently published/accepted papers and their authors, and engaged in a facilitated discussion related to how this research progressed from initial manuscript (inception) to ultimate publication, with additional emphasis on how to conceptualize and produce manuscripts that meet the quality and focus requirements of their particular journal. Each Journal Editors and Authors Panel session had Q&A opportunities from both on-site conference participants and those participating through the internet from around the world.

Keynote Addresses

     Each of these sessions were designed around keynote addresses from exemplar Research Scholars who provided insights into the best practices that have served them well across an entire career of producing top tier research. In addition, the keynotes discussed both driving and emerging themes in entrepreneurship research that are relevant to the many fields that study social phenomena where entrepreneurship plays a role. Each keynote session had Q&A opportunities from both on-site conference participants and those participating through the internet from around the world.

     It was the intent that both the Editors/Authors Panels and Keynote Addresses will serve as a new set of transparent milestones for encouraging and accelerating the successful publishing of top-tier Entrepreneurship research from multi-disciplinary, highly committed scholars.

     All sessions were web-streamed and recorded for future downloading, and have been made available to all entrepreneurship researchers on both the AoM’s Entrepreneurship Division and University of Connecticut’s CCEI websites. For further information go to: http://www.business.uconn.edu/cms/p1193

     The sponsors of this award are listed on the mainpage of our website, and their assistance is greatly appreciated by the division.