Entrepreneurs of Chaos? | 19.-20.05.2025

This two-day symposium, comprising a day of lectures and a day of workshops, aims to draw up a radical critique of the ideology of disruption and impact, which is currently dominating the thinking and practices of technological innovation and entrepreneurship¹ by drawing on the work of the French philosopher Bernard Stiegler, but also by going beyond it. Stiegler has argued that the current polycrisis situation can be understood as an increase of entropy in various forms: physical, biological, social, and psychological. Originally developed in the context of thermodynamics, the physical concept of entropy refers to the degradation of energy in a system to a non-usable state, implying a tendency towards disorganization and disorder.² Life, however, strives towards negative entropy, i.e., the accumulation and maintenance of energy. Following this notion, Stiegler and others work with the notion of negentropy, a new word creation expressing the idea of negative entropy. Against this background, this symposium aims to bring together entrepreneurship and innovation scholars with contemporary philosophy to, first, develop a critique of the concepts of disruption and impact in the context of (technological) innovation and entrepreneurship and, second, develop an alternative model of technological innovation and entrepreneurship that considers economic, social, cultural, and ecological balances. Thus, we wish to discuss and develop a negentropic conception of entrepreneurship that is contributory to social and ecological well-being, foregrounding construction³, creation⁴ and transformation⁵ rather than disruption, exploitation and degeneration as central features of contemporary entrepreneurship. Indian society will be the subject of particular attention as a paradigmatic case of the disruptive strategies pursued by Western multinational companies towards societies in the Global South. Thus, our conference will also attempt to link the issue of technological disruption to reflections on neo-colonialism and post-colonialism.

The general argument of the conference can be found here.

1. Jonah Zankl & Matthew Grimes, Taming unicorns: Toward a new normal of responsible entrepreneurship. Academy of Management Review, 49(4), 2024.
2. Anne Alombert, A Conceptual History of Entropies from a Stieglerian Point of View, Technophany, 2(2), 1–15, 2024, (https://technophany.philosophyandtechnology.network/article/view/15390)
3. Rajshree Agarwal, David Audretsch, & M. B. Sarkar. The process of creative construction: Knowledge spillovers, entrepreneurship, and economic growth. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 1(3-4), 263-286, 2007.
4. Daniel Hjorth, Antonio Strati, Sarah Drakopoulou Dodd, & Elke Weik. Organizational creativity, play and entrepreneurship: Introduction and framing. Organization Studies, 39(2-3), 155-168, 2018.
5. Jeffery McMullen. Real growth through entrepreneurial resourcefulness: Insights on the entropy problem from Andy Weir’s the Martian. Academy of Management Review, 49(4), 2024.

Duration: 1-day and half conferences and half a day of workshops
Date and time: May 19 and 20, from 9. a.m. to 7 p.m
Location: Central Building, Leuphana University, Lüneburg
Fields of research: Philosophy, management and organization studies, economics, political science.
Language of the symposium: The conference and the workshops will be exclusively in English.
Structure of the conference: The program of the symposium includes 4 sessions of talks on the first day of the symposium, 2 sessions of talks on the second day and 2 sessions of workshops on the second day.

The Organizing Scientific Institution: 
- Leuphana Research Initiative: The Disruptive Condition

The Scientific Partners: 
- Leuphana Center for Critical Studies; 
- Leuphana Center for Organization and Social Transformation (LOST)
- DFG Network “A Temporal Perspective on Disruptive Innovation Processes”

First Day : Open Symposium

Opening 9.00 – 9.15: Igor Galligo, Erich Hörl and Elke Schüßler 

1st Session: Impacting social and economic fields: the warlike logic of disruptive innovation
- 9.20 – 9.45: 1 talk: Oliver Ibert & Sunje Schmidt (Leibniz Institute for Research for Society and Space, Germany)
- 9.50 – 10.15: 2nd talk: Jochen Koch (European University of Viadrina, Germany)
- 10.20 – 10.30: Discussant: internal: Markus Reihlen (Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany)
- 10.30  – 11.00: Collective discussion with the audience 

Break of 20 minutes 

2nd Session: The libertarian turn of entrepreneurship against institutions, organizations and ecosystems
- 11.20 – 11.45: 1 talk: Jeffery McMullen (Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, USA)
- 11.50 – 12.15: 2nd talk: Nevena Radoynovska (EM Lyon Business School, France)
- 12.20 – 12.30: Discussant: Laura Hille (Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany)
- 12.30 – 13.00: Collective discussion with the audience

Lunch Break (buffet) of 1 hour and 30 minutes

3rd Session: The technological cause of entropy 
- 14.30 – 14.55: 1 talk: Michal Krzykawski (University of Silesia, Poland)
- 15.00 – 15.25: 2nd talk: Dimo Dimov (University of Bath, UK)
- 15.30 – 15.40: Discussant: Elke Schüßler (Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany)
- 15.40 – 16.10: Collective discussion with the audience

Break of 30 minutes 

4th Session: Disruption and neo-colonialism. The “Indian Silicon Valley” under debate
- 16.40 – 17.05: 1 talk: Neharika Vohra (Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, India)
- 17.10 – 17.35: 2nd talk: Srivardhini K Jha (Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, India)
- 17.40 – 17.50: Discussant: Igor Galligo (Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany)
- 17.50 – 18.20: Collective discussion with the audience

Dinner at 20.00 with all the speakers.

Second Day : Symposium and Workshops

Re-opening 9.00 – 9.05 : Igor Galligo (Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany)

5th Session: Post-colonialism and disruption. What lessons can we learn from alternative entrepreneurial experiences in the Global South ? The case of India
- 9.10 – 9.35: 1 talk: Vigneswara Llavarasan (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India)
- 9.40 – 10:05: 2nd talk: Rajashekar Reddy Konduru (Great Lakes Institute of Management, India)
- 10.10 – 10.20: Discussant: Tim Weiss (Imperial College London, UK)
- 10.20 – 10.40: Collective discussion with the audience

Break of 20 minutes 

6th Session : How can entrepreneurs become actors of negentropy? (Bifurcation, Contribution and Transindividuation)
- 11.00 – 11.25: 1 talk: Ludovic Duhem (Haute Ecole des Arts du Rhin, France)
- 11.30 – 11.55: 2nd talk:  Igor Galligo (Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany)
- 12.00 – 12.10: Discussant: Erich Hörl (Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany) 
- 12.10 – 12.30: Collective discussion with the audience

Lunch Break (buffet) of 1 hour and 30 minutes

First Workshop:  Thinking negentropic entrepreneurship: Model and criteria of transindividuation
- 14.00 – 15.20: 4 simultaneous workshops
- 15.25 – 15.55: Presentation of the results by the 4 teams (7 minutes by team)
- 16.00 – 16.20: Collective discussion with the audience 

Break of 20 minutes 

Second Workshop: Designing negentropic entrepreneurship: Process of transindividuation 
- 16.40 – 18.00: 4 simultaneous workshops
- 18.05 – 18:35: Presentation of the results by the 4 teams (7 minutes by team)
- 18.40 – 19.00: Collective discussion with all the participants 

19:00: Cocktail with all the participants