The Johnson School atrium buzzed in late July as more than 65 researchers from around the world talked about global trends in entrepreneurship, their current projects and, being academics, their favorite data sets.

The occasion was the July 22-24 conference, "The Cornell-McGill Conference on Institutions and Entrepreneurship," the first academic gathering to examine how entrepreneurs are influenced by institutional challenges.

"Research has traditionally focused on the characteristics of the individual entrepreneur -- do they have the right personality, willingness to take risks and business savvy to make an enterprise work?" said Robert David, Cornell Ph.D. 2001, professor of strategy and organizations at McGill University, who co-organized the conference with Wesley Sine, the J. Thomas Clark Professor in Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise at the Johnson School.

"We were asking, 'How do new kinds of economic activity emerge? What can entrepreneurs do to fight off incumbents and establish their new industry?'" Sine said. "It's clear that institutions -- governments, legal structures, culture, values, norms, the things people care about -- shape how successful an entrepreneur can be, but, as far as we know, there has never been a conference that focuses on these aspects of entrepreneurship. Our goal is to build a research community that focuses on these issues."

Researchers said the conference, which was hosted by the Johnson School, Entrepreneurship@Cornell and McGill University, gave them the opportunity to network and learn from others.

"Between 80 to 90 percent of the people who are doing this kind of research are in this room," said Jeffrey Robinson of New York University.

Entrepreneurs and other business owners are increasingly realizing the importance of outside institutions on their bottom line. Especially for entrepreneurs operating in emerging markets or for those with progressive new technologies, the lack of institutions or impact of institutions can be a key in the company's success or failure.

"We've talked to people in wind power companies," Sine said. "Their biggest challenge isn't having a good product. They have that. It's educating people about wind power and what it can do. It's dealing with people's perceptions of novelty and fear of the unknown and changing those perceptions. It's about adapting existing institutional structures and creating new ones to support this new technology."

For progressive technology companies like these, government regulations also present a hurdle -- namely because the regulations aren't written with their technology in mind. Other institutional challenges include the influence of environmental and religious groups, which are becoming more active in the realms of progressive technology and medical technology.

The impact of institutions is also evident as companies continue to expand operations outside their home countries. Such institutional factors as political stability, cultural differences, legal systems, values and business regulations are some of the areas being studied by researchers.

Conference papers ranged from theoretical discussions on the connections between institutions and entrepreneurship to situational research on topics ranging from the effect of social movement protests on stock price returns; political-economic impacts on entrepreneurs in Central and Eastern Europe; and impacts of institutions on such new fields as digital photography and satellite radio.

A select group of papers from the conference will be published in a special issue of Research in the Sociology of Work.

"Cornell is on the leading edge -- bringing major issues like this into the classroom," David said. "The best business schools today include a mixture of cutting-edge research and hands-on experience to help students understand why some new ventures succeed and others fail."

Kathy Hovis is a writer/editor for Entrepreneurship@Cornell.