Abstract Submission Guidelines for the 2008 ICSB Conference

Submission Due Date: February 18th, 2008

All abstracts are to be submitted electronically on the 2008 ICSB website at https://www.softconf.com/starts/icsb08/submit.html. The online submission site will open on September 30th, 2007 and will close on February 18th, 2008.

General Rules Governing Submissions

• All abstract submissions must clearly show a link to the theme of the conference as well as relevance to the four pillars of ICSB – Policy Makers, Practitioners, Educators, and Researchers. 

• Paper and Workshop submissions can be submitted online between September 30th, 2007 and February 18th, 2008. 

• Authors must designate a primary track for the submission in the online system. The tracks include:

1. Advancing Entrepreneurship, including Education
2. The Policy and Regulatory Environment, and the Impact of SME/entrepreneurship Policies and Programs
3. Types of Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurs (e.g., Women, Minorities and Community and Social Entrepreneurship)
4. Overcoming Barriers to Entrepreneurship and SME Development
5. Regional and Rural Entrepreneurship
6. Entrepreneurship and SME Development in Transition and Developing Economies
7. Small Business Support Services
8. Training and Development of Entrepreneurs
9. Social, Environmental, and Ethical Responsibility and Sustainable Development of SMEs
10. Micro-finance, Development Banking, Innovative SME Financing
11. Entrepreneurship and the Commercialization of R&D
12. SME Management and Growth
13. Research methodology and theory development in the field
14. Corporate Entrepreneurship
15. Governance and ownership of small firms, including family firms and entrepreneurial firms

• All submissions must be original and must not be under concurrent consideration or scheduled for presentation elsewhere.

• Abstracts should not exceed two (2) single-spaced pages with one-inch margins in Times Roman 12. 

• Academic paper abstracts should clearly state the aim of the study, methods used, results obtained and conclusions reached for SMEs and entrepreneurship as well as implications for policy or program development. Abstracts should include title of paper, name(s) of author(s), affiliation, and full contact details. 

• Workshop and case study proposals should clearly link to the themes of the conference. Proposal abstracts must include: topic, name of workshop leader (with full contact details), names of workshop panellists, and a brief description of what the workshop will cover.  

• All submissions will be acknowledged by email. 

• The official languages of the conference are English and French. Abstracts may be submitted in either of these two languages. 

• For the purpose of programming, upon acceptance of the abstract, authors will be required to submit a 100-word paragraph briefly describing their submitted paper. Further details will be provided upon acceptance. 

• All submissions will be blind reviewed. Authors must avoid revealing their identities in the body of the abstract. All workshop proposals will be reviewed, but participant names should be left on the submission. 

• Selection for insertion in the 2008 ICSB Conference program will be based upon relevance to the theme, linkage to the four ICSB pillars (i.e., research, education, policy, and practice), quality, and originality in the judgement of at least two independent reviewers.  

• Full paper submission guidelines will follow the same structure as the Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship publication. For these guidelines, please see the following website: http://www.ccsbe.org/jsbe/guidelines.htm

Contact Information

• For further information regarding the paper tracks, please contact:

                      Dr. Robert Anderson, Paper Chair

                      University of Regina

                      Phone: +01 (306) 585-4728

                      Email: Robert.Anderson@uregina.ca

• For further information regarding the workshop tracks, please contact:

                      Mr. Chris Pelham, Workshop Chair

                      Acadia Centre for Social and Business Entrepreneurship

                      Phone: +01 (902) 585-1181

                      Email: Chris.pelham@acadiau.ca

• For further information on the 2008 ICSB World Conference, please contact:

                      Shelley Hessian, Conference Manager

                      Saint Mary’s University Business Development Centre

                      Phone: +01 (902) 429-4535

                      Email: Shelley.Hessian@smu.ca

Click here for 2008 ICSB Online Submission Guidelines