Tag: Business Administration

Project Description

Prior research has largely examined mission drift in hybrid social enterprises through governance and institutional lenses. However, its breadth of application to services from the standpoint of customer perceptions, attributions, and recovery efforts remains understudied. In this study, mission drift is conceptualized as a form of moral value proposition failure rather than governance failure. Researchers will identify consumers of three types of firms (traditional CSR, legal Benefit Corporations, and BCorp certified) through brand followership on social media. Once identified, researchers will guide prospective respondents to an online scenario-driven research instrument. This is an opportunity for students to train on sales and marketing tactics and leverage these to skills to affect real-world outcomes.

Prerequisites

No. We will teach them what they need to know in order to succeed.

Special Comments

Faculty will need to spend at least a few hours educating students on sales and marketing techniques to help them drive respondents to the instrument. We will also need to develop a strategy with workers to ensure effective remote work.

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/8/2026

Estimated End Date: 7/17/2026

Estimated Project Duration: 6 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 2

Research Location: Remote

Travel Required? No (If “yes”: )

Contact Information: Gavin Fox (email: foxg@wlu.edu)

Project Description

For this SRS project, students will work with me on two applied research projects in management and organizational behavior. The first project focuses on developing original business case studies based on real organizations. Students will assist with background research, outreach to organizations, interview preparation and participation, and drafting portions of the cases. The second project involves the final stages of an open educational resource (OER) eTextbook in management and organizational behavior. Students will help identify and evaluate credible sources, revise content for clarity and accuracy, incorporate short case studies and applied examples, and ensure materials meet accessibility requirements. Depending on student skills and interest, there may also be opportunities to contribute to graphic design work. I am looking for students who write well, pay close attention to detail, are reliable in completing assigned work, and want to deepen their understanding of organizational behavior topics.

Prerequisites

Management and Organizational Behavior (BUS 217)

Special Comments

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/15/2026

Estimated End Date: 7/31/2026

Estimated Project Duration: 7 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 2

Research Location: Hybrid

Travel Required? Yes (If “yes”: There is the possibility of travel to locations within 1-2 hours of Lexington to conduct interviews, but this travel is limited and flexible.)

Contact Information: Charlotte Hoopes (email: choopes@wlu.edu)

Project Description

This project offers 2–3 students the opportunity to work as junior research collaborators across one or more of my active research programs in entrepreneurship and business ethics. Students will engage directly with a range of research activities, from design and IRB processes to data collection and analysis. I will allocate students across projects based on fit, interest, and where each project stands at the start of the SRS term. Work may involve contribution to one project or across several. The three active research streams are: 1) Entrepreneurial Visionaries, Scientists, and Opportunists. My prior qualitative research has produced a typology of approaches to entrepreneurship. This project extends that work into a quantitative phase. Depending on progress and student aptitude, tasks may include instrument design, participant recruitment and outreach, IRB documentation, survey administration, and statistical analysis. 2) Edgework in the Digital Age. This project applies the sociological concept of edgework—voluntary risk-taking at the boundaries of acceptable behavior—to stand-up comedy in the digital media environment. Tasks may include systematic literature review spanning sociology, entrepreneurship, media studies, and organizational behavior; theory development; and qualitative coding of stand-up comedy sets. 3) Perceived Moral Violation and Mission Drift. Building on my prior experimental work examining audience responses when mission-oriented ventures are perceived to have violated core values, this project develops further experimental work around the conditions under which such perceptions form and spread. Depending on direction, tasks may include experiment design around moral violation and mission drift, exploration of debiasing interventions, or investigation of social contagion dynamics in audience response. Tasks may also include materials development, IRB documentation, participant recruitment, data collection, and analysis. All students will be expected to participate in regular meetings with the team. I expect students to engage seriously with primary literature and to use AI-assisted tools thoughtfully as part of the research workflow.

Prerequisites

None required. Interest in entrepreneurship, business ethics, psychology, and sociology is helpful and welcome. Comfort working independently and with nascent, ambiguous research questions is essential.

Special Comments

The project runs on-campus for six weeks, from June 29 through August 7, 2026. Students should anticipate several remote working days. Students considering graduate study in business, psychology, or related social sciences are particularly encouraged to apply.

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/29/2026

Estimated End Date: 8/7/2026

Estimated Project Duration: 6 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 3

Research Location: On campus

Travel Required? No (If “yes”: )

Contact Information: Joel Adams (email: jadams2@wlu.edu)