My dissertation focuses on the intersection of culture and entrepreneurship. My most important question is: how do regional business cultures affect the local entrepreneurship process? I am interested in understanding how these cultures form and change over time.
To study these complex questions, I am conducting interviews with software entrepreneurs, investors and economic development officials in Waterloo, Ottawa and Calgary Canada. These interviews provide me with an in depth view of the unique practices of entrepreneurship and investment in each city. This leads to interesting perspectives, such as the role of the federal government in software and high-tech entrepreneurship in Ottawa.
Papers and Presentations
- A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Growth, Decline and Rebirth of Ottawa’s Entrepreneurial Institutions Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Economic Development (vol 22). E-mail me for a copy
- The Geography of Canadian Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment. The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business. 15(3) 340-361.
The regional variation of entrepreneurship and self-employment within and across nations has been carefully studied over the past 20 years. A multitude of papers covering more than a dozen countries have examined what economic and social factors drive local entrepreneurship. This paper both adds to this literature by examining the sources of regional variation of self-employment in Canada as well as critiques it by discussing the challenge of applying findings from one country to others. Through a meta-analysis of 34 previous studies of regional entrepreneurial variation, several common factors are identified and then examined in a Canadian context. Using data from the 2006 Census of Canada, the paper uses OLS regression to test the role of economic, demographic, and social factors on non-agricultural self-employment in Canadian census metropolitan areas. Population growth, migration, unemployment, firm size and structure all play a significant role in rates of self-employment in Canada.
- Regional Cultural Contexts and Entrepreneurial Intentions: A Bourdieuian Approach (Presented at the 2011 Babson Entrepreneurship Research Conference & 2011 Association of American Geographers Conference)
