Shawna Chen, Brock University

Michael Lounsbury, University of Alberta

Chris Zhang, University of Houston Downtown

While entrepreneurship research has increasingly recognized identity as central to entrepreneurial processes, 2SLGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs remain significantly underexplored in the core literature, particularly regarding how sexuality and gender identity interact with entrepreneurial ecosystems and institutional structures. This special issue aims to advance conceptual, empirical, and methodological understanding of 2SLGBTQIA+ entrepreneurship by examining how these entrepreneurs navigate visibility, stigma, belonging, and legitimacy within broader institutional and spatial contexts.

The special issue welcomes diverse theoretical and methodological approaches, including identity theory, queer-feminist perspectives, intersectionality, institutional theory, and institutional logics. Submissions may employ qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methodologies and are encouraged to bridge theory and practice by including diverse scholarly teams with practitioners involved in entrepreneurship.

Appel publié par Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship. Lire l'appel complet sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• LGBTQ+ identity and entrepreneurial identity work
• Coming out, concealment, and impression management in venture contexts
• Intersectionality (e.g., race, gender, class, disability) and layered entrepreneurial experiences
• Institutional barriers to legitimacy, funding, and recognition
• Emancipatory entrepreneurship: removing structural constraints through business creation
• Entrepreneurial ecosystems and their (in)capacity to support LGBTQ+ inclusion
• Policy and programmatic responses to LGBTQ+ small business development
• Entrepreneurial wellbeing, belonging, and non-economic goals
• Comparative studies of LGBTQ+ entrepreneurship across national and regional contexts
• Methodological approaches for studying LGBTQ+ and equity-deserving entrepreneurs

Timeline

• November 1, 2025: Opening date for manuscript submissions
• October 31, 2026: Closing date for manuscript submission
• April 1, 2027: Expected publication date

Appel publié par Technovation. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Timeline

• October 15, 2026: Submission deadline

Benjamin Laker, University of Reading

Sven Horak, St. John's University

Toyin Ajibade Adisa, University of East London

Fulya Acikgoz, University of Sussex

While inclusion has become central to human resource management practices globally, its institutional foundations are becoming increasingly unstable. Political and economic shifts, organisational hesitation, and cultural challenges have weakened the norms and mechanisms supporting inclusive HRM. This special issue examines how inclusion becomes performative—publicly supported but weakly implemented—when its institutional backing erodes.

The issue calls for work that moves beyond static views of identity to examine how it is constructed and contested through HRM systems amid institutional uncertainty. Research grounded in intersectionality, social identity theory, and critical perspectives is particularly encouraged, as are comparative studies showing how inclusion operates differently across institutional and cultural contexts. The collection seeks to understand how HRM practices both regulate identity and potentially become sites of resistance and contestation.

Appel publié par The International Journal of Human Resource Management. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Organisational responses to the erosion or contestation of inclusion mandates
• Identity construction, negotiation, and resistance within HRM systems
• Symbolic inclusion vs substantive change in HRM practice and policy
• How performance systems, leadership pipelines, or 'culture fit' criteria embed normative assumptions about who belongs
• Comparative and global analyses of inclusion across varied institutional, legal, and cultural settings
• HRM as a mechanism of voice suppression, identity masking, or strategic silence
• The effects of intersectional identity configurations (e.g. gender × race × class) on access to opportunity, recognition, and legitimacy in HRM
• How informal networks and shadow structures sustain or subvert inclusion efforts
• Experiences of inclusion and exclusion when organisations retreat from formal DEI commitments
• Institutional logics, power asymmetries, and the politics of belonging in HRM systems
• Decolonial or Indigenous critiques of Western-centric inclusion frameworks in global HRM

Timeline

• November 30, 2026: Manuscript deadline