About the Conference
Entrepreneurship in the Global Majority
Informality, Constraint, and Adaptive Innovation
Conference Overview
Hosted by the Centre for Researching Community and Enterprise (CRCE) and Reframery at McMaster University, this international conference brings together a diverse community of scholars, practitioners, advocates, and policymakers united by a shared commitment to understanding entrepreneurship as it is actually lived and practised across the Global Majority.
Mainstream entrepreneurship discourse has long been shaped by assumptions rooted in high-income, formally institutionalized contexts. This conference challenges those assumptions — not by rejecting rigorous inquiry, but by insisting that the full complexity of global entrepreneurial experience must be at the centre of our theories, methods, and recommendations.
Over two days, participants will engage in keynote addresses, academic and practitioner panels, immersive workshops, roundtable discussions, a failure pitch contest, case study sessions, and structured networking — all designed to foster generative dialogue across disciplinary, geographic, and sectoral boundaries.
Note: Full conference description, thematic tracks, and speaker profiles will be finalized and published in the coming months. This is a working preview of the conference platform.
Key Themes
Global Majority Focus
We centre the experiences of entrepreneurs in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and diaspora communities — regions that represent the majority of the world's population yet remain underrepresented in mainstream entrepreneurship scholarship.
Informality & Constraint
Entrepreneurship in the Global Majority often unfolds outside formal institutional structures. This conference examines how informality shapes strategy, relationships, and growth trajectories.
Adaptive Innovation
Constraint can be a driver of creativity. We explore how entrepreneurs adapt, improvise, and innovate within — and despite — resource-scarce, politically complex, and rapidly changing environments.
Policy & Practice
Bridging academia and practice, the conference creates space for dialogue between researchers, development organizations, policymakers, and community leaders.
Who Should Attend
The conference is designed to be genuinely interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral. We welcome:
- Academic scholars in entrepreneurship, innovation, development studies, and related fields
- Practitioners working in emerging and frontier markets
- NGOs and development organizations
- Community leaders and social entrepreneurs
- Policymakers at local, national, and international levels
- Graduate students and early-career researchers
- McMaster University faculty, staff, and students
Organizers
Hosted by two leading organizations at McMaster University
CRCE
Centre for Researching Community and Enterprise
Based at McMaster University, CRCE supports research on community development, social enterprise, and the intersections of business and society.
Reframery
Reframing Entrepreneurship & Innovation
Reframery is dedicated to reframing narratives around entrepreneurship, innovation, and development — bringing new voices and contexts to the forefront of research and practice.