“Doing Entrepreneurship at the Margins: Qualitative Insights”

Call for Papers – Special Issue: “Doing Entrepreneurship at the Margins: Qualitative Insights”

Journal: Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management
Publisher: Emerald Publishing
Submission deadline: 28 February 2027

Overview

This special issue addresses the limitation of traditional, quantitative entrepreneurship research in capturing the lived experiences of marginalized actors. It positions "entrepreneurship at the margins" as a critical site for qualitative theory-building, inviting submissions that treat marginalization as an analytical lens to revisit and extend core organizational concepts such as power, agency, inequality, legitimacy, and meaning-making.

Key Research Themes

• Marginality as an Analytic Lens: Using marginalized lived experience to develop new qualitative theories that move beyond descriptive empirical models.

• Everyday Organizing: Analyzing the informal, non-market, and community-based practices that allow marginalized entrepreneurs to navigate structural constraints and institutional invisibility.

• Diversity & Contextualization: Research focusing on gendered, racialized, migrant, Indigenous, or disabled entrepreneurship, particularly in Global South or under-researched contexts.

• Methodological Innovation: Exploring reflexive and innovative ways to access and research underrepresented populations, addressing challenges related to trust, positionality, and gatekeepers.

Submission Details

• Submission window: 20 April 2026 – 28 February 2027.

• Submission portal: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/qrom

• Special Instructions: During the submission process, ensure you select the special issue title from the "Please select the issue you are submitting to" drop-down menu.

Guest Editors

• Adriana Perez-Encinas, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (adriana.perez.encinas@uam.es)

• Cristian E. Villanueva, Universidad Anáhuac México (cristian.villanueva@anahuac.mx)

• Cat Spellman, Durham University (catherine.spellman@durham.ac.uk)

• Diana L. Villanueva, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (diana.villanueva2105@comunidad.unam.mx)

Why This Issue Matters

Standard entrepreneurship models often render marginalized entrepreneurs invisible because their strategies do not fit singular, universal narratives. By prioritizing lived experience and methodological reflexivity, this special issue provides a necessary space for qualitative scholars to produce situated knowledge that challenges dominant paradigms, making entrepreneurship research more inclusive and analytically robust.

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