Convegno The Language of Innovation

Entrepreneurs addressing grand societal challenges operate in an increasingly complex environment. On the one hand, environmental and humanitarian crises are increasing, calling for more human and radical innovation to reduce them and for stronger moral positions. On the other hand, entrepreneurs increasingly operate in an amoral space in an era where algorithmic systems and artificial intelligence spread misinformation or falsehood at scale, organizations manipulate knowledge to serve strategic interests, and political or sociocultural polarization undermines consensus on even the most fundamental facts. In this context, entrepreneurs need to reinvent their narratives, develop more creative forms of storytelling, and use language and symbols that go beyond mere cognitive facts in ways that are engaging.

In this context and in the light of an emergence of a vibrant community interested in how entrepreneurs use language and communication to either innovate or grow the aim of this workshop is to: 1) support scholars in the development of early work, 2) explore and define the new conversations around entrepreneurship and communication, 3) engage with the industry to gain knowledge about the phenomenon. For the last purpose, the workshop will kickstart with a practitioner breakfast wherein two social entrepreneurs will give short talks of their engagement strategy followed by a panel discussion with academics in entrepreneurial narrative research and a dialogue with the audience.

The workshop will be developmental, with each paper receiving detailed and hands-on feedback from two senior scholars with a track record of multiple publications in the field of creativity research. Authors will also receive feedback from peers with similar research interests. The workshop offers an opportunity to build community, benefit from discussion and exchange of ideas, and envision new collaborations.

We welcome submissions from a variety of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches that aim to contribute to the study of creativity. Potential contributions include, but are not limited to, the following research topics:

1.      Narratives and storytelling in a polarized and post-truth era

-   How entrepreneurs understand and communicate their “truth” and the coexistence of multiple, potentially conflicting truths within multicultural, diverse environments? 

-   How new forms of narratives and stories are used to communicate in an increasingly polarized environment?

-   How disinformation affects storytelling and positioning but also innovation?

2.  The role of visuals and multimodality in communicating, especially but not only in social media.

-   What role do visuals and multimodality play in communicating new stories and narratives?

-   How do multimodal changes in the realm of social media support novel ideas and new products and markets?

3.     Language and its structural properties

-       How does the post-truth era challenge the investigation of the structural properties of language?

-       What challenges and opportunities are presented by the advances in machine learning methods to capture variations in styles, structures, and meanings across communication modes?

Bayes Business School, City St George's, University of London

Surrey University