Best paper award for Professor Nick Williams
Professor Nick Williams was awarded best paper for challenging conventional wisdom at the RENT (Research in Entrepreneurship and Small Business) Conference.
Nick Williams, Professor of Entrepreneurship and member of the Centre for Enterprise and Entrepreneurship, accepted the award along with co-authors Professor Emmanuella Plakoyuannaki at the University of Vienna and Besnik Krasniqi at the University of Prishtina at the conference which took place in Berlin in November 2019.
The paper, entitled ‘Returnee entrepreneurship to complex economies: The role of social networks’ examines individuals who had been forced to migrate away from their homeland due to war and later returned to post-conflict to start their own businesses.
Drawing on interviews with returnee entrepreneurs in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, the researchers examine how social networks were used upon return.
The research shows that despite the break from the homeland caused by war, social networks are maintained and allow entrepreneurs to overcome many of the challenges associated with transnational entrepreneurial activity.
Professor Williams commented:
Emmanuella, Besnik and I were delighted to win this award. It was a great honour to be recognised for our research on what we see as an important and valuable topic, that of forced migration and return, and to be recognised by our peers in this way.
