The McQuinn Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership is currently participating in two research grants that were awarded in the Spring of 2014 by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

The first project – Collective Identity and Collective Entrepreneurship for Agricultural Producers – is centered at the University of Missouri and has Illinois State University as a partner.

The second project – Collective Entrepreneurship for Small and Medium-Sized Farms – is centered at Michigan State University.  The McQuinn Center is a subaward/partner.

Both projects are empirical tests of the application of Ruef’s relational demography.  Notwithstanding the particular interest that each of the directors and associates of the McQuinn Centre have in entrepreneurial ventures by collectives of small firms, the relational demography model should prove to be an interesting framework for studying collective entrepreneurship in start-up teams, formal and informal teams within large organizations, and other groups and networks.  Regardless of the nature of the group membership, if we pursue empirical research into group entrepreneurship, we must consider the questions by the management, organization theory, and institutional/evolutionary economics over the past six years or so.