Journal of Business Venturing Design

Journal of Business Venturing Design publishes original works that advance both theoretical understanding and the practice of entrepreneurship. JBVD does so by regarding entrepreneurship as a form of design to be studied as a design science. Entrepreneurship as design is broadly defined as the iterative and uncertainty facing process of establishing a new "business" (or "opportunity", "venture", "startup" etc.), typically by working with various intermediate artifacts. Studying entrepreneurship as a design science means that the ultimate, if not immediate, goal of all contributions should be instrumental, i.e. the development of knowledge or tools that improve the art and skill of entrepreneurial design. In this sense, entrepreneurship is similar to other design sciences such as engineering and medicine. And much like these fields draw on the physical and life sciences, entrepreneurship (and management more generally) in part relies on explanatory and descriptive knowledge produced in various social science disciplines. There is also potential in interdisciplinary contributions that relate entrepreneurial design to insights from other design science disciplines, such as product design, service design, organization design, software design, and information systems design.

Importantly, the focus on instrumental knowledge does not imply that explanatory or descriptive research will not be published. It does, however, mean that such works should explicitly aim toward the development of more instrumental knowledge or tools. To illustrate, explanatory research seeking a general causal mechanism on the form 'X causes A under condition B' can be turned into an instrumental design principle if X can be manipulated with predictable results. Similarly, descriptive research seeking patterns in the details of specific situations may be turned in to design principles by gradually producing better understandings of how elements of the situation relate to one and other.

The instrumentality of design science highlights its ethical dimension. As opposed to purely descriptive or explanatory sciences, design science more directly helps manipulate the world in particular directions, suggesting that design scientists have a potential moral responsibility for the knowledge and tools developed.

Constrained by the above, JBVD publishes high-quality conceptual and empirical works - regardless of disciplinary origins or methodological orientation - that advance our knowledge of entrepreneurship as design. Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Conceptual issues such as: how entrepreneurship can be theorized as a form of design; how constructs, models, and methods for design can be developed from explanatory and descriptive research (e.g. explanatory causal mechanisms and descriptive case studies); how the materiality of design artifacts influences entrepreneurial practice; how design science research can be validated; how the ethical dimensions of entrepreneurial design research can be understood; and how general design principles relate to specific practices.

• Empirical issues such as: studies proposing new constructs, models, and methods for design; tests and refinements of proposed constructs, models, and methods (e.g. using simulations, longitudinal case studies, field-experiments, and action research); descriptive studies of the use of specific tools and artifacts in entrepreneurial practice (e.g. business model frameworks, software development kits, product prototypes, pitches).

In addition to conceptual and empirical research that advance our knowledge of entrepreneurship as design, such advancement can also take the form of more immediately useful tools. In addition to traditional papers, JBVD will therefore publish work that introduces and evaluates tools and methods grounded in design science research. These can include, but are not limited to, the following kinds:

• Business analysis frameworks (e.g. industry analysis tools, business model templates).

• Business design algorithms or heuristics (e.g. methods for entrepreneurial experimentation and transformation).

• Pedagogical materials (e.g. examples of specific tools and materials for teaching entrepreneurial design in different contexts).