March 16 - 18, 2016, Guayaquil, Ecuador

Hosted by the ESPAE Graduate School of Management, ESPOL Guayaquil, Ecuador

Paper Submission Due Date: November 1, 2015

Latin America is among the world regions with the highest share of entrepreneurs, but this has made little impact on the persistent challenges of economic growth. Strategies are needed that ensure sustainability and scale so that entrepreneurship creates value and generates jobs.

One strategy that has proved successful in some areas is cooperation among entrepreneurs. Collective action can create an ecosystem that benefits the community as a whole and each enterprise individually. Partnerships among entrepreneurs, as a cooperative strategy, can be crucial in the survival rates of new firms by developing their individual strengths and maximizing their collective impact. Furthermore, these strategies can improve the size and employment generation of firms (i.e. becoming dynamic entrepreneurs), thus producing sustainable growth. We are particularly interested in papers that address the following issues:

• What are the external and internal factors that allow/facilitate scaling up successful business models in Latin America?
• What are the constraints faced by Latin American startups to scale up and grow?
• How can firms mitigate those constraints? What can governments do to minimize those constraints?

Papers in all areas of business and economics are invited. We especially invite those that explore the growth strategies of entrepreneurial ventures and their role in regional economic development. All papers submitted must focus on the business or economic environment of Latin America or the Caribbean.

Paper deadline submission is November 1, 2015.