The purpose of this research study was to describe and develop an understanding of how female leaders lead in the current and transitional landscape of higher education, how they perceive and have utilized an entrepreneurial mindset and leadership characteristics, and how they have worked to achieve a delicate balance between feminine and…

This dissertation consists of three chapters that contribute to the fields of macroeconomics, economic development, and entrepreneurship. In the first chapter, "Entrepreneurship Selection and Performance in the U.S. and Across Countries: The Role of Human Capital," I seek to establish a set of stylized facts related to entrepreneurship…

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in March 2020 resulted in hundreds of companies canceling internships for college students who had accepted offers for the summer. While colleges and companies were determining how to move forward, a team of recruiters and learning professionals at a global telecommunications company engaged thousands of…

This dissertation describes a qualitative research study that grows our understanding of the career development experiences, supports, and barriers of social entrepreneurs who are gifted adults (SEGA) so that we may nurture the career development of future SEGA. Research questions for this study probed the career development experiences, supports,…

Much research on how curriculum reform occurs in higher education has focused on top-down models that deemphasize individual agency and overlook bottom-up processes of innovation. This case study, in contrast, described and analyzed the process by which an engineering instructor used the strategies and tools of entrepreneurship, honed through his…

This dissertation examines changes to the publicness of American research universities from the mid-20th to the early 21st century. The changes are discerned by analyzing salient higher education public policies, contemporary pressures affecting research universities, and a "Research University Publicness Dashboard," which contains…

This paper describes the effects of workers' investments in their own education in light of the complementarity the Acemoglu (1997) and Redding (1996) showed to exist between R&D and education investments. Despite the different investment efforts that economies pour into their economies, many developing, and least developed countries are…

One purpose of this study was to add insight to help Small Business Development Center (SBDC) entrepreneurial educators understand why over 40% of their adult learners discontinue their learning program prematurely. In addition, this study explored how the comprehensive Self-Directed Learning (SDL) model might inform our understanding of attrition…

The purpose of this research is to explore the business strategies of a firm seeking to develop and profitably market a mobile smartphone application to understand how small, digital entrepreneurships may build sustainable business models given substantial market barriers. Through a detailed examination of one firm's process to try to…

John Maxwell once wrote, "True leadership cannot be awarded, appointed, or assigned. It comes only from influence, and that cannot be mandated. It must be earned. The only thing a title can buy is a little time-either to increase your level of influence with others or to undermine it." There is a plethora of theories and models available…

In this dissertation, I develop a definition and regional measure of entrepreneurship that will aid entrepreneurship research and economic development policy. My new indicators represent an improvement over current measures of entrepreneurship. The chief contribution of these new indicators is that they incorporate innovation, which others ignore.…