Strategy and Entrepreneurship Ph.D.

Michael Cummings' research interests include the social and environmental impact of entrepreneurial activity, as well as financing for early-stage ventures. His research on social and environmental entrepreneurship examines how entrepreneurs measure and communicate the nonfinancial value they create.  His entrepreneurial finance research addresses how entrepreneurs attract resources through crowdfunding as well as how migrants and their financial remittances affect the availability of new venture funding in developing countries.

• Rawhouser, H., Cummings, M., & Hiatt, S. 2019. Does a Common Mechanism Engender Common Results?: Sustainable Development Tradeoffs in the Global Carbon Offset Market. Academy of Management Discoveries, 5(4), 514-529.
  • Lessons from the world's largest market-based approach to lowering CO2 emissions. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2020/09/22/lessons-from-the-worlds-largest-market-based-approach-to-lowering-co2-emissions/
• Rawhouser, H. Cummings, M., and Newbert, S. 2019. Social Impact Measurement: Current Approaches and Future Directions for Social Entrepreneurship Research. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 43(1), 82–115.
• Cummings, M., Rawhouser, H, Vismara, S., & Hamilton, E. 2020. An Equity Crowdfunding Research Agenda: Evidence from Stakeholder Participation in the Rulemaking Process. Small Business Economics, 54(4), 907-932.
• Martinez, C., Cummings, M. & Vaaler, P. 2015. Economic Informality and the Venture Funding Impact of Migrant Remittances to Developing Countries. Journal of Business Venturing, 30(4), 526-545.
  • Cabbies and Capital: Migrants are Re-shaping the Developing World. https://eiexchange.com/content/79-cabbies-and-capital-migrants-are-re-shaping-the

Alan Ellstrand's research focuses on corporate governance, top management teams, and executive leadership. His early work focused on the influence of board composition on firm performance. More recently he has examined a variety of issues including executive retirement and the implications of gender on executive leadership.

• Bilgili, H., O'Leary-Kelly, A., Campbell, J.T., Ellstrand, A.E., Johnson, J.L. (2020). The final countdown: Regulatory focus and phases of CEO retirement. Academy of Management Review 45: 58-84.
• Bilgili, H., Campbell, J., Ellstrand, A.E. and Johnson, J.L. (2017). Riding off into the sunset: Organizational sensegiving, shareholder sensemaking, and reactions to CEO retirement. Journal of Management Studies 54: 1019-1049.
• Dixon-Fowler, H. R., Ellstrand, A. E., and Johnson, J. L. (2013). Strength in numbers or guilt by association? Intra-group effects of female chief executive announcements. Strategic Management Journal. 34: 1488-1501.

Jake Grandy's research agenda spans entrepreneurship, strategy and the business environment, and corporate social responsibility. His work explores how both new ventures and established firms influence and are influenced by external stakeholders (such as government, social movement organizations, the media, consumers, local communities). He draws on institutional theory, social movements theory and stakeholder theory to examine this issue in the context of corporate social responsibility. 

• Grandy, J. & Hiatt, S. 2020. State Agency Discretion and Entrepreneurship in Regulated Markets. Administrative Science Quarterly, 65(4):1092-1131.
  • When public agencies are free to decide, entrepreneurs are more likely to get a license. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2020/05/29/when-public-agencies-are-free-to-decide-entrepreneurs-are-more-likely-to-get-a-licence/
  • Friends in Low Places: Independent Regulators Helps Entrepreneurs. https://www.organizationalmusings.com/2020/03/friends-in-low-places-independent.html
• Hiatt, S., Grandy, J. & Lee, B. 2015. Organizational Responses to Public and Private Politics: An Analysis of Climate Change Activists and U.S. Oil and Gas Firms. Organization Science 26(6): 1769-1786.

Oleg Petrenko's research broadly focuses on the micro-foundations of strategy in large corporation and new venture contexts. Specifically, he is interested in examining the psychology of executives and entrepreneurs and how it impacts strategic decision-making and firm performance.

• Corporate Social Responsibility or CEO Narcissism? CSR Motivations and Organizational Performance. Strategic Management Journal, 37, 262-279.
  • Why Investors Might Want to Bet on Humble CEOs. https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-investors-might-want-to-bet-on-humble-ceos-11572836641
• The case for humble expectations: CEO humility and market performance. Strategic Management Journal, 40, 1938-1964.
• Let's agree about nice leaders: a literature review and meta-analysis of agreeableness and its relationship with leadership outcomes. Leadership Quarterly (in press)
• Bargaining your way to success: The effect of Machiavellian chief executive officers on firm costs. Strategic Management Journal (in press).

Jason Ridge's research interests focus on both corporate political activity and strategic leadership. From the political perspective his current research focuses on the firm-government interface, specifically focusing on how firm's utilize political activities to manage their regulatory environment. His strategic leadership focused research considers how executive characteristics and compensation influence strategic decision making.

• Hill, A., Aime, F., & Ridge, J. 2017. The Performance Implications of Resource and Pay Dispersion: The Case of Major League Baseball. Strategic Management Journal, 38: 1935-1947.
  • 10 Years of Data on Baseball Teams Shows When Pay Transparency Backfires. https://hbr.org/2017/05/10-years-of-data-on-baseball-teams-shows-when-pay-transparency-backfires
• Ridge, J.W.,Hill, A.D. & Ingram, A. (2018) The Signaling Role of Stock Ownership in the Market for Corporate Political Activity. Journal of Management.
  • The Growing Conflict-of-Interest Problem in the U.S. Congress. https://hbr.org/2017/02/the-growing-conflict-of-interest-problem-in-the-u-s-congress
• Ridge, J.W.,Ingram, A., & Hill, A.D. (2017) Beyond Lobbying Expenditures: How Lobbying Breadth and Political Connectedness Affect Firm Outcomes. Academy of Management Journal.

Dan Worrell's research interests include the areas of corporate social responsibility, business strategy and business schools' alignment with and support of faculty research.

• Worrell, D. L., Nemec, C. & Davidson, W.N. 1997. One Hat Too Many: Key Executive Plurality and Shareholder Wealth. Strategic Management Journal, 18: 499 – 507.
• Stead, W.E., Worrell, D.L. & Stead, J. G. 2013. An integrative Model for Understanding and Managing Ethical Behavior in Business. Citation Classics from the Journal of Business Ethics. 405-418.
• Gilley, K. M., Worrell, D. L., Davidson, W. N. & El-Jelly, A. 2000. Corporate Environmental Initiatives and Anticipated Firm Performance: The Differential Effects of Process-Driven Versus Product-Driven Greening Initiatives. Journal of Management. 26: 1199 – 1216.
• Worrell, D. L. 2009. Assessing Business Scholarship: The Difficulties in Moving Beyond the Rigor-Relevance Paradigm Trap. Academy of Management Learning and Education. 8: 127 – 130.

Shannon Younger's research is rooted in entrepreneurship and organizational theory. She explores how new ventures become and remain meaningful in the markets where they compete. Drawing on work in cultural entrepreneurship, market categories, legitimate distinctiveness, and socio-cognition, she primarily uses qualitative methods and hand-collected datasets to conduct her research. 

• Younger, S., & Fisher, G. (2020). The exemplar enigma: New venture image formation in an emergent organizational category. Journal of Business Venturing, 35(1), 105897
• Sergent, K., Lee, D., Stajkovic, A. D., Greenwald, J. M., Younger, S., & Raffiee, J. (2021). The mitigating role of trait core confidence on psychological distress in entrepreneurship. Applied Psychology, 70(3), 1128-1153.