We have several areas of research in our entrepreneurial program. First, students work on case studies or innovation in industry. These projects are generally presented at the annual Student Research Forum or published in case research journals and textbooks. Second, Dr. Paula Englis and the students work on projects focusing on international entrepreneurship and more particularly, born global firms.

Born global firms are firms that from inception look at the global market to sell their product or service. Often, these firms are led by individuals with a global mindset and some international travel and experience. These firms also tend to be knowledge intensive with a technological core that can be leveraged into the global marketplace. Examples of born global firms include Logitech, Albany Molecular Research, MicroFlown, and Virobuster. We work closely with Nikos, the Dutch Institute for Knowledge Intensive Entrepreneurship.

Nikos latest initiative is Venture Lab Twente in partnership with Saxion. VLT is a pre-incubator program that uses a scientifically proven methodology for start up support that combines talent, ideas and finance into successful businesses. We hope that VLT will faciliate born global firm creation. Our students will work with some of the entrepreneurs at VentureLab in May 2011 through the International Entrepreneurship course. Dr. Englis is closely involved on the VLT advisory board. Dr. Englis' resume is available is available below.

Quotable In Entrepreneur StartUps, March 2009

Recent publication - Davis, P.S., Babakus, E., Englis, P.D., and Pett, T. 2010. The Influence of CEO gender on market orientation and performance in service SMEs. Journal of Small Business Management, 48(4): 475-496.