Living Entrepreneurship Blog / Babson Entrepreneurs

Diana Conference 2017 Recap

On October 1 to 3, Babson co-sponsored the 10th Diana International Conference hosted by the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City. This year the theme was Women Entrepreneurs and High Growth Businesses. The conference was opened by Wendy Guillies, President and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation. The Foundation generously supported the conference by waiving the registration fees, providing cash awards for the three Best Papers, and hosted a gala dinner at the Nelson Atkins Museum.

Diana Conference Attendees

Diana Conference Attendees

Highlights of the Conference include:

>> 93 papers were submitted by authors from 27 countries

>> 42 papers were accepted for presentation (after a double-blind review process)

>> 70 scholars attended the Conference, representing 18 countries

>> There will be a special issue on the conference theme in the Journal of Small Business Management, a top-ranked entrepreneurship journal. This will be the 11th special issue of an academic journal that will showcase top papers from this Conference. In addition, Edward Elgar Publishing has agreed to publish the 9th edited volume, once again featuring top papers from the Conference.

The papers presented at the Conference ranged from case studies, to legal analyses, to pedagogical papers, to large quantitative data analyses, to policy papers. The group’s data base and LinkedIn Group of scholars now has more than 500 researchers from 47 countries who have contributed papers, and attended Diana Conferences. Babson would like to extend a special thanks to the Diana Conference co-directors: Candida Brush and Patricia Greene, Babson College; Amanda Bullough, University of Delaware; and Diana Hechavarria, University of South Florida; as well as to Babson’s Fyllis Berg-Elton who provided invaluable planning support.

The Diana International Conference for 2018 will be held in Bangkok, Thailand and the Bangkok University, a Collaborative member and GEM member. Babson is already at work with Bangkok University on planning the nexxt Conference, and it promises to be an exciting one.

Further, the 2019 Diana International, we will return to Babson College as part of Babson’s Centennial year celebrations, and the Conference will be held right before our Babson Entrepreneurship Research Conference (BCERC) in June.

“It was a fantastic event that expanded the Babson brand globally,” said Candida Brush. “It demonstrated our commitment to top scholarship and women’s entrepreneurship.”

Learn more:

>> The Diana Project™
>> “Women Entrepreneurs 2014: Bridging the Gender Gap in Venture Capital” Executive Summary
>> Women’s Entrepreneurship in Global and Local Contexts