Workshop - Understanding accelerators as organizations that influence diversity and inclusion in entrepreneurship through practices; University Park, PA; Summer 2020

Despite the widespread availability of accelerators and other context for entrepreneurship education, the high-tech, high-growth (HTHG) entrepreneurial ecosystem remains mostly white and male. Accelerators are organizations with specific practices and processes that inform their culture and structure. Research that is devoted to the organizational science of accelerators and their practical role in matters of diversity and inclusion in HTHG entrepreneurship is needed. To prime the development of such a literature, this workshop – Understanding Accelerators as Organizations that Influence Diversity and Inclusion in Entrepreneurship – will convene faculty researchers and graduate students in organization science and entrepreneurship as well as practitioners who facilitate accelerators. Once assembled, participants will set forth an agenda for future research that will advance theories of organization about accelerators while attending to issues of relevance in practice. The output from the gathering will be shared widely to stimulate awareness about the need for greater diversity and inclusion in the entrepreneurial ecosystem and the means by which scholars and practitioners can collaborate on rigorous and relevant research. Moreover, the workshop aims to be the beginning of an ongoing community of shared interest that can continue to move forward scholarship on entrepreneurship and diversity over time.

In recent decades, studies of science education have shifted the expectations for diversity and inclusion contexts for learning about Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). Despite the overlap between STEM and HTHG entrepreneurship, only limited insights have transferred from informal STEM learning contexts to accelerators. Starting with these gaps, this workshop will highlight what is known (and what needs to be known) about accelerators as organizations and their impact on matters of diversity and inclusion in HTHG entrepreneurship. The developed research agenda will encourage interdisciplinary scholarship on matters of diversity and inclusion in contexts for entrepreneurship education. New insights stand to be fostered in organizational science regarding how to support greater diversity and inclusion in accelerators as well as in adjacent activity settings such as universities with formal entrepreneurship programs and businesses in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. These insights will advance scientific knowledge on the role that the processes and practices of accelerators have on the initial involvement and career trajectories of entrepreneurs from non-dominant population groups (including women, people of color, people from working class backgrounds, and people from rural communities), thereby promoting greater equity in the innovation economy.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.