Entrepreneurship – Strategy – Organization – Leadership

The ESOL department was created in spring 2010 as part of a renewal process at the Jönköping International Business School (JIBS) where the successful and large department of Entrepreneurship, Marketing and Management was re-organized into two separate departments (ESOL and Marketing & Logistics).

At the ESOL department, our focus in teaching and research is on entrepreneurial, strategic, organizational and leadership activities in different kinds of organizations. Our research is strongly linked to our teaching and is visible in all undergraduate and graduate profile courses.

Entrepreneurship, strategy, organization and leadership are studied with a focus on, but not exclusively, two main empirical contexts. The first empirical context is family businesses, and activities are organized in the Centre for Family Enterprise and Ownership (CeFEO, www.cefeo.se ). CeFEO is ranked as number 4 in the world and as number 1 in Europe regarding family business research.
The second context is media companies, with activities organized in the Media Management and Transformation Centre (MMTC, www.mmtcentre.se), the world´s premier research centre on media management and economics studies. Both centers are grateful for the donations from Jönköping University´s largest private benefactor, the Carl-Olof and Jenz Hamrin Foundation.

As a top institution in the field, JIBS has attracted large amounts of external funding for its entrepreneurship research and our world-class research education and environment has produced and attracted a number of award-winning scholars, whose publications have received prestigious prizes:

Year	Author	Prize
2009	Per Davidsson	‘Greif Award’ for the best-cited paper on entrepreneurship
2009	Alexander McKelvie	IDEA award in the research promise category of the Academy of Management’s entrepreneurship division for his dissertation
2009	Lucia Naldi	National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) award for the best dissertation in entrepreneurship
2009	Johan Wiklund	Best reviewer award Journal of Management Studies
2009	Johan Wiklund	IDEA award of the Academy of Management’s entrepreneurship division for a co-authored paper
2008	Bengt Johannisson	International Award for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research (now renamed to ‘The Global Award for Entrepreneurship
2008	Veronica Gustafsson (with co-authors)	Research Promise Award, Academy of Management’s entrepreneurship division
2008	Alexander McKelvie	National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) award for the best dissertation in entrepreneurship
2008	Lucia Naldi and Mattias Nordqvist	SBA Office of Advocacy Award for the Best Paper Exploring the Importance of Small Businesses to the U. S. Economy or a Public Policy Issue of Importance to the Entrepreneurial Community
2008	Johan Wiklund (with co-authors)	Research Promise Award and Best Empirical Paper Award, Academy of Management’s entrepreneurship division

The established excellence in entrepreneurship research has led to a variety of entrepreneurship-related activities. Aspects of entrepreneurship are taken up in most courses and research projects in ESOL. The ESOL department has established strong international research links in a set of constellations and international research programs, and most researchers at ESOL are part of global research networks. ESOL researchers publish regularly in world class ranked academic journals such as Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship, Theory and Practice, Small Business Economics, Strategic Organization, Family Business Review, Long Range Planning, Strategic Management Journal and Journal of Management Studies.

ESOL is engaged in a set of outreach activities in close cooperation with regional and national partners, for example Svenskt Näringsliv, Svenska Handelskammaren, Almi, Regionförbundet, Tillväxtverket, Tidningsutgivarna and Länsstyrelsen.