How to Make your Doctoral Research Relevant

Edited by Friederike Welter, President and Managing Director, Institut für Mittelstandsforschung (IfM) Bonn and Professor, University of Siegen, Germany and David Urbano, Professor of Entrepreneurship, Department of Business and Centre for Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation Research (CREIS), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain

• Contents:WHY SHOULD WE CARE ABOUT THE RELEVANCE AND IMPACT OF OUR RESEARCH?1 Introducing the book: the what, why and how of relevance and impact 2Friederike Welter, David Urbano, Turki Alfahaid, Abdullah Aljarodi, Elsa Breit, Andreas Buhrandt, Débora de Castro Leal, Sina Feldermann, Jonas Janisch, Philipp Köhn, Tatiana Lopez, Anne Löscher, Anna Müller, Max Paschke, Philipp Julian Ruf, Julia Schnittker and Christine WeigelHOW TO IDENTIFY RELEVANCE IN YOUR RESEARCH TOPIC: NEW DIRECTIONS IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP RESEARCH2 Bring your background up and keep the context in mind to choose the right conversation 11Sebastian Aparicio3 Irrelevant or relevant: key learnings from an early career researcher for other early career researchers 13Jonas Janisch4 Schrödinger’s family firm: on the German legislator implicitly defining the family business and how he attempts to protect it 23Andreas Buhrandt5 Can you spare a dollar, please? Foreign exchange shortage as a persistent challenge to economic development 34Anne LöscherHOW TO MAKE YOUR RESEARCH APPROACHES RELEVANT6 Find your conversation and join it 48Claudia Alvarez7 The real deal: a researcher among practitioners 50Inga Haase8 From practice to practice: an example for the relevance of research (projects) and its implications 61Julia Schnittker9 Different approaches of context in quantitative entrepreneurship research 69Abdullah Aljarodi, Tatiana Lopez and Turki Alfahaid10 How to study context in quantitative entrepreneurship research 80Christine Weigel and Christian Soost11 Reflections of an activist-academic 92Débora de Castro LealHOW TO TRANSFER YOUR RESEARCH RESULTS12 Be passionate about your research topics and share this passion 104Kerstin Ettl13 The life cycle of academia and its impact on early career researchers’ publishing behaviour 106Philipp Julian Ruf and Philipp Köhn14 Living under the restrictions of a ‘publish or perish’ culture 119Christine Weigel and Anna Müller15 Fighting for attention: early career researchers and the online scientific community 130Inga Haase and Anna Müller16 The value of business events for engaged scholarship 142Elsa Breit17 Bridging the gap: contextualization as a lighthouse 154Max PaschkeAFTERTHOUGHTS18 An ongoing journey: developing relevance and impact dimensions of entrepreneurship research 167Tatiana Lopez, Anna Müller and Max PaschkeIndex 174

'This book may become the beginning of a new movement as it encourages new researchers to examine the relevance of their work beyond the world of academic publications. As community engagement becomes an ever greater aspect of the work of universities, How to Make your Doctoral Research Relevant should become prescribed reading for any new researcher who wants their work to have meaningful impact for multiple stakeholders.'--Thomas M. Cooney, Technological University Dublin, Ireland'This is a very timely book addressing a pressing question of impact and relevance in research. Most importantly the book not only suggests relevance and impact to matter but embraces a challenge how to promote and sustain change in academia. This is done by inviting PhD students and junior researchers to discuss ways to identify relevant questions to be studied with relevant approaches and how to transfer our research results for the society. As such, the book actively aims at resisting ''publication frenzy'' and offers a way out to the more inspiring future in research!'--Ulla Hytti, University of Turku, Finland'This is a different book - unique regarding both the collection of contributors and their combined messages. Together the authors stress the importance of connecting their intellectual curiosity to value creation - for themselves, their academic institutions, and explicitly for society. By reflecting on their group discussions and then sometimes quite personal introspection, they promote the continued need for questioning assumptions and applying novel research methodologies. Overall, Welter and Urbano have worked with their early career contributors to craft an exploration of impact and relevance of academic research that makes me optimistic for the future.'--Patricia Greene, Babson College, US