Michael Morris

Areas of Expertise: South Africa; Business & Development; Education; Local Capacity Building; Poverty; Social Entrepreneurship

Michael H. Morris is a Professor of the Practice who specializes in entrepreneurship and social innovation. He holds a joint faculty appointment with the Pulte Institute for Global Development and the McKenna Center for Human Development and Global Business, both of which are integral parts of Notre Dame's Keough School of Global Affairs.

A pioneer in curricular innovation and experiential learning, he has built three university entrepreneurship programs that have been ranked in the top 10 in the United States and earned global recognition for excellence. Morris also is the founder and director of the Experiential Classroom, a clinic that shares best practices in entrepreneurship education with faculty from around the globe.

Morris has worked to bring entrepreneurship empowerment to those operating under conditions of adversity; a commitment that is reflected in his research, teaching, and community engagement efforts. He has launched major poverty initiatives in Syracuse, New York, and Gainesville, Florida; designed a magnet program in entrepreneurship at an underserved high school in Tulsa, Oklahoma; created the National Disabled Veterans Entrepreneurship Program; and annually coordinates the Entrepreneurship and Empowerment in South Africa (EESA) Program.

Throughout his career, Morris 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), which recognized him as Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year in 2012. Additionally, he is a recipient of the Edwin M. and Gloria W. Appel Entrepreneurship in Education Prize, the Academy of Management's Dedication to Entrepreneurship Award, and the Freedoms Foundation's Leavey Award, all for his contributions to entrepreneurship and education.

Morris is a former Fulbright Scholar and earned his Ph.D. in marketing from Virginia Tech in 1983.

Publications, Presentations and Other Work

Books

• What do entrepreneurs create?: Understanding four venture types (2019), Edward Elgar Publishing (with Donald Kuratko).
• Poverty and entrepreneurship in developed economies (2018), Edward Elgar Publishing (with Susana Santos and Xaver Neumeyer).

Book Chapters

• “Beyond Adolescence:  Solidifying the Foundations of Entrepreneurship Education,” in Annals of Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy, C. Matthews (editor), Northhampton, MA: Edward Elgar Press.
•  “Entrepreneurship and the Poverty Experience”, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management Oxford University Press.

Journal Articles

• “Entrepreneurship as a Pathway into and out of Poverty: A Configuration Perspective,” accepted for publication in Entrepreneurship and Regional Development (2022) (with Susana Santos).
• “Re-Thinking Content:  Teaching Students About Entrepreneurship Versus How to Be an Entrepreneur,” accepted for publication in the Journal of Entrepreneurship (2022).
• “Overcoming the Liability of Poorness:  Disadvantage, Fragility and the Poverty Entrepreneur,” Small Business Economics, 57(3), 1089-1106. (2021) (w/D. Kuratko and D. Audretsch)
• “Poverty and entrepreneurship in developed economies: re-assessing the roles of policy and community action,” Journal of Poverty, 25(2), 97-118 (2021) (w/R. Tucker)
• “Effectuation and Causation, Firm Performance, and the Impact of Institutions: A Multi-Country Moderation Analysis,” accepted for publication in the Journal of Business Research (2021) (w/ G. Shirokova, A.Laskovaia and E.Micelotta).
• “Poverty and Entrepreneurship in Developed Economies:  Re-Assessing the Roles of Policy and Community Action” Journal of Poverty (2020) (w/Reg Tucker)
• "The Great Divides in Social Entrepreneurship and Where they Lead Us” Small Business Economics (2020) (w/ S. Santos and D. Kuratko)
• “Entrepreneurship Education in the Transformation of Incarcerated Individuals: A Review of the Literature and Future Research Directions” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology (2020), 64(15): 1551-1570, (w/Grosholz, J., Kabongo, J. & Wichern, A.)
• “The Liability of Poorness: Why the Playing Field is Not Level for Poverty Entrepreneurs” Journal of Poverty and Public Policy (2020)
• “Overcoming Barriers to Technology Adoption When Fostering Entrepreneurship Among the Poor: The Role of Technology and Digital Literacy” IEEE Engineering Management (2020) (w/X. Neumeyer and S. Santos)
• “Entrepreneurship as a solution to poverty in developed nations” Business Horizons (2020), May-June, (with Susana Santos and Xaver Neumeyer)
• “Team entrepreneurial competence: Group effects on individual cognitive styles,” (in press), International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior and Research, (in press), (w/Susana Santos).
• “Retirement of entrepreneurs: implications for entrepreneurial exit,” (in press), Journal of Small Business Management, (w/Sohrab Soleimanof and Rebecca White).
• “Entrepreneurship education in a poverty context: an empowerment perspective,” (2019), Journal of Small Business Management, 57, 6-32. (w/S. Santos & X. Neumeyer).
• “Who is left out: Exploring social boundaries in entrepreneurial ecosystems” (2019), Journal of Technology Transfer, 44 (2), 462-484, (w/X. Neumeyer).
• “Expertise, university infrastructure and approaches to new venture creation: Assessing students who start businesses” (2018), Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, 29(9-10), 912-944 (w/G. Shirokova & O. Osiyevskyy).
• “National culture, effectuation, and new venture performance: Global evidence from student entrepreneurs” (2017), Small Business Economics, 49(3), (w/G. Shirokova).

Papers Published in Conference Proceedings

• “Examining the role of the dark side of CEO personality in decision-making approaches within Russia", Best Paper Proceedings, 82nd Annual Meeting, Academy of Management, Seattle, WA (August 2022).
• “Entrepreneurship as a Pathway into and out of Poverty: A Configuration Perspective,” in person at the 2022 Annual Conference of the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Raleigh, North Carolina, (January 6-9, 2022)