The space economy offers a powerful empirical setting for management research - but it also raises distinctive methodological challenges.
Space-related activities unfold over long time horizons, involve complex technological and organizational interdependencies, and require coordination among public and private actors across national and regulatory regimes. These features make snapshot research designs difficult and call for approaches that can capture evolving trajectories, ecosystem dynamics, and cross-regime variation.
At the same time, scholars studying space organizations often face constraints around access, security, defense-related confidentiality, and the early developmental stages of many ventures. This roundtable will explore how management scholars can adapt and extend existing methods while also leveraging increasingly rich secondary data sources such as mission records, regulatory filings, procurement documents, and policy statements.
👥 Facilitators
• Michael John Gill - Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
• Markus Perkman - Imperial College Business School
🛠️ Discussion questions
• What makes the space economy a distinctive empirical context for management research?
• How do long-duration and evolving space activities challenge conventional research designs?
• Which methods are most appropriate for studying unfolding processes, ecosystem dynamics, and cross-regime variation?
• How can scholars navigate access constraints related to security, confidentiality, and defense-related activities?
• How can secondary data sources complement primary data and help study change over time?
• How can methodological innovation in space economy research refine or extend existing management theories?
Join us for a focused discussion on how to study complex, capital-intensive, and opaque frontier industries and how the Space Economy can help management scholars push the boundaries of research design, data strategy, and theory development.
🗓️ August 1, 2026 | 2:00–5:30 PM
📍 Loews Hotel, Philadelphia, USA
🔗 Register: https://lnkd.in/e3czZT4R
📩 Questions: Mehdi.montakhabi@said.oxford.edu
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Enrique Acebo
University of León
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