Michael Morris, a scholar of entrepreneurship, is a faculty member of the McKenna Center for Human Development and Global Business, part of the Keough School at University of Notre Dame. He has authored 13 books, 24 book chapters, and more than 130 articles in peer-reviewed journals. He co-edits the Prentice-Hall Entrepreneurship Series and is editor emeritus of the Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship.
Morris is a past president of the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE). He has been awarded the Edwin & Gloria Appel Prize for contributions to entrepreneurship, and the Academy of Management’s Dedication to Entrepreneurship Award. A former Fulbright Scholar, Morris was named a top 20 entrepreneurship professor by Fortune Small Business, and received the Leavey Award from the Freedoms Foundation for impacting private enterprise education. USASBE recognized him as Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year in 2012. He is co-author with Dr. Kuratko on the most-read article Corporate Entrepreneurship: A Critical Challenge for Educators and Researchers published within the USASBE EE&P Journal.
Question: How did you get into entrepreneurship education? What was your path?
I have always had an interest in entrepreneurship, but it was not something you could get a degree in when I was a student. I studied economics as an undergraduate student, but in those days economists had little to say about entrepreneurship. This is why I pursued a Ph.D. in business. My interest was so keen that I taught my first course in entrepreneurship as an unpaid overload when I was a brand new assistant professor. There were not a lot of books or materials available, which set me on a path of developing my own tools and frameworks and borrowing from others as entrepreneurship started to emerge in universities. To me, entrepreneurship is what drives economies. It is the dynamic that distinguishes thriving from declining nations. More importantly, though, entrepreneurship is more than launching a venture. It is about empowering individuals and transforming communities.
Question: What is your favorite class to teach and why?
This is a hard question as there is nothing in entrepreneurship I don’t love teaching. Within the university, my favorite is probably Entrepreneurial Marketing. Lately, I have been teaching a Poverty and Entrepreneurship class, and that is also very enjoyable. But I also really get excited about teaching entrepreneurship in our outreach programs, whether to disabled veterans, those in poverty, or those experiencing other adverse circumstances. With each of these teaching opportunities, what I find most intriguing is the challenge of making the subject matter central to the student’s own life and world. The challenge of great teaching is to make it content-rich while also making it experiential and personally relevant while also making it intellectually exciting.
Question: What does your research focus on and how does it inform your teaching?
Over the decades, my research has addressed a wide range of entrepreneurship-related topics. Recent work has emphasized the critical differences between what we call survival, lifestyle, managed growth, and aggressive growth ventures. We explore these differences in depth in our new book, titled What Do Entrepreneurs Create? (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020). These differences are not sufficiently reflected in our theorizing or empirical work in entrepreneurship. And they are especially critical in our teaching, as each requires a different approach and is distinct in terms of the resources, skills, managerial orientation, rewards, exit strategies, and much more. Moreover, while much of the teaching focus is on aggressive growth ventures or so-called gazelles, hardly any of our students will ever launch this type of venture.
Question: How has membership in USASBE benefited you?
USASBE has been a very important part of my career. As a past president, and before that as a reviewer, division (now SIG) head, program chair, conference chair, and board member, over the years I found service to USASBE and involvement in the annual conference to be a tremendous opportunity both for learning and self-development. I’ve never been to a USASBE conference where I did not come away with two new research ideas and a couple of innovative ideas for my teaching. Arguably, USASBE is the most friendly, open, and giving professional organization within the entrepreneurship discipline.
Question: We love to end these on a fun note. Can you share a fun fact about yourself? Something that makes you unique?
It does not make me unique, but I still play the drums. One year we even put a band together and played at the USASBE conference opening reception. I can’t say we played all that well, but it was a lot of fun. And we now play every year at the Experiential Classroom.
