Best paper for African entrepreneurship study

A Professor of Uncertain Reasoning and Business Analytics from Cardiff University has scooped two awards at the 2018 Irish Academy of Management (IAM) conference held in Cork University Business School, Ireland.

Malcolm Beynon, Associate Dean for Technology and Data at Cardiff Business School, won Best Overall Paper at the conference ahead of approximately 150 entries by an internationally diverse delegation of practitioners from academia and beyond.

Professor Beynon also secured the best paper award for his presentation on the conference’s Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management track.

Activity and intention

His paper, ‘Total Entrepreneurial Activity and Entrepreneurial Intention in Africa Regions using Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA)’, is co-authored with Paul Jones, Professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Swansea University and David Pickernell, Professor of Small Business and Enterprise Development at the University of Portsmouth.

Reflecting on the wins, Professor Beynon said: “This is my first attempt, with my colleagues, at looking at entrepreneurship in the African context...”

The research team adopted a configurational approach to their analysis of entrepreneurial activity and intention across Africa.

In its 21^st year, IAM is the leading professional association for management studies, research and education in Ireland. It promotes the advancement of research, knowledge and education in the field of organisation and management studies.