Meena Chavan, Macquarie University

Christina Theodoraki, IAE Aix-Marseille University

Michelle Evans, University of Melbourne

Jane Menzies, University of Sunshine Coast

Anna Earl, University of Canterbury

Alex Maritz, La Trobe University

Bella Galperin, University of Tampa

This special issue examines Indigenous-led enterprises as drivers of sustainable regional development. Indigenous entrepreneurs worldwide create ventures that blend economic ambition with cultural stewardship, community well-being, and sustainability, often emerging from contexts of historical marginalization and systemic exclusion. The issue broadens geographic scope beyond Anglophone regions to include insights from Latin America, Asia, Africa, and beyond, recognizing Indigenous entrepreneurship as a global phenomenon.

The special issue situates Indigenous entrepreneurship at the intersection of place-based enterprise, sustainability, and regional development. Indigenous ventures are deeply embedded in specific lands, ecosystems, and social networks, operating as collective processes that integrate cultural values with business strategy. Many pursue triple bottom-line objectives combining economic, social, and environmental goals, challenging mainstream entrepreneurship paradigms to adopt more inclusive, community-centric frameworks.

Appel publié par Entrepreneurship & Regional Development. Lire l'appel complet sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Indigenous entrepreneurial ecosystems and community-driven support systems
• Indigenous enterprise in CSR/ESG and sustainability goals
• Leadership styles and communal decision processes in Indigenous enterprises
• Market expansion and authenticity for Indigenous businesses
• Branding and storytelling around Indigenous cultural heritage
• Cultural appropriation and intellectual property rights protection
• Indigenous worldviews integrated into business and management frameworks
• Entrepreneurship education and capacity-building programs
• Enterprise as self-determination and pathways to economic independence
• Technology adoption by Indigenous entrepreneurs
• Challenges and resilience in Indigenous business development
• Indigenous women entrepreneurs and their contributions
• Policy and place-based development initiatives
• Global comparative perspectives on Indigenous entrepreneurship
• Culture-based enterprise models for heritage preservation
• How Indigenous cultural values shape entrepreneurial decision-making
• Institutional voids and barriers faced by Indigenous entrepreneurs
• Community networks, kinship ties, and competitive advantage
• Balancing profit motives with social and environmental responsibilities

Timeline

• December 1, 2025: Launch of call and submissions open
• February 1, 2026: Virtual Paper Development Workshop (for North and South America, Europe, Africa, Middle East, and Asia-Oceania)
• May 1, 2026: Virtual Paper Development Workshop
• August 1, 2026: Virtual Paper Development Workshop
• October 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Himadri Roy Chaudhuri, Xavier School of Business (XLRI)

Mark Tadajewski, University of York

Andrew Perchard, Otago Business School, University of Otago

Zoi Pittaki, University of Dundee School of Business

This special issue examines Indigenous entrepreneurial agency under colonial rule, treating colonial institutions as both economic constraints and sociopolitical structures that shaped market access, legal standing and accumulation strategies.

It invites business historical accounts of how entrepreneurs in colonised societies navigated, contested and reworked the rules of commerce, especially where access to courts, licensing, property rights, banking and credit markets was restricted or selectively enforced.

Contributions drawing on primary sources such as company records, court records, licensing files, banking archives, trading accounts, petitions, newspapers and vernacular-language materials are particularly encouraged.

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

Potential topics

• Entrepreneurship under legal and financial exclusion: responses to constraints in courts, licensing, taxation, banking, property rights, labour regimes and credit markets.
• Institutional negotiation and boundary work: how entrepreneurial actors exploited institutional gaps, navigated plural legal orders, reinterpreted colonial rules and mobilised intermediaries or brokers.
• Resilience as strategy: cooperative, mutual-aid and associational forms; diasporic, kinship and inter-regional networks; and late-colonial economic nationalism and early decolonisation as sites of institutional reconfiguration.
• Innovation as resistance: technology adoption and adaptation through which entrepreneurs offered alternatives that subverted or circumvented colonial hegemony.
• Comparative or connected histories that use the shared conceptual lens across cases.
• Submissions may use archival research, oral history, biography, microhistory, and comparative or connected history, and may engage postcolonial scholarship, subaltern studies, and critical perspectives on firms, markets and institutions.

Timeline

• October 1, 2026: Abstract deadline
• May 1, 2027: Manuscript deadline