Welcome to my site on Entrepreneurship Research
and Life
Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship
Tim Michaelis, PhD
Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship
My Background
I grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina and went to Western Guilford high school. After graduation, I went to college at NC State University and ended up staying for 10 years, finishing a masters in innovation management and a PhD in applied social psychology.
I currently work as an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at Northern Illinois University. When I'm not focusing on research, I am generally playing golf or planning my next trip with my wonderful wife, Allison. Next on the bucket list is San Sebastián, Spain... and back to Scotland!
Travel
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.
-Mark Twain
ABOUT TIM MICHAELIS, PHD
Dedicated to Research & Teaching
My Hobbies
When I'm not at work, I love traveling, big mountain skiing, playing golf, white water rafting, playing board games, and relaxing at home watching movies. I am extremely passionate about investing, personal finance, and I'm always about 5-10 years ahead in my mind... I love planning for the future. Another hobby I enjoy is traveling the world and have been to almost every continent without ever paying for a plane ticket. I enjoy travel hacking / credit card churning in order to travel for nearly free... I have been doing this for about 10 years and I'm always happy to help others do the same. As Mark Twain said, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”
My Research
I focus primarily on developing original research around the topics of resourcefulness and the efficient (i.e., frugal) use of resources in entrepreneurial ventures and mature organizations. Overall, this work is to help increase the survival rates of startups and corporate spinoffs. Additional research interests I have include, (a) developing a clinical model for entrepreneurship teaching, research, and practice, (b) process modeling, longitudinal analysis, and experimental design, (c) self-regulation and regulatory focus in entrepreneurship, and (d) the intersection between mental health and entrepreneurial finance in association with venture outcomes (e.g., venture survival and performance).
Teaching Philosophy
In all of my courses I start with a value proposition to highlight the practical knowledge that will be gained and how to apply the course content to solve real world problems. To develop an entrepreneurial mindset in students, I focus on developing deep critical thinking skills through root cause analysis, technical writing, analytical thinking, the socratic method. Furthermore, in all of my courses, I always conduct a lecture on personal finance. I am a Boglehead at heart and passionate about all things finance and in living a frugal lifestyle. I've found that personal finance courses are largely absent from high school, undergraduate, and graduate curriculum across all disciplines and I seek to fix this problem. Overall, my teaching philosophy is to help all of my students to be prepared for life and to be self sufficient critical thinkers.
PUBLISHED WORK
Peer Reviewed
Tim's research has been published in Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Journal of Technology Transfer, and Academy of Management Discoveries, among others. He also has been quoted in the mainstream media, from WalletHub to the Wall Street Journal.
Highlighted Research
An agentic perspective of resourcefulness: Self-reliant and joint resourcefulness behaviors in the entrepreneurship process
Michaelis, T. L., Scheaf, D., Carr, J. C., Pollack (In press). Journal of Business Venturing.
The frugal entrepreneur: A self- regulatory perspective of resourceful entrepreneurial behavior
Michaelis, T. L., Carr, J. C., Scheaf, D., Pollack, J. M. (2020). Journal of Business Venturing.
Revising entrepreneurial action in response to exogenous shocks: Considering the COVID-19 global pandemic
Giones, F., Brem, A., Pollack, J. M., Michaelis, T. L., Klyver, K., Brinkmann, J. (2020). Journal of Business Venturing Insights.
Pursuing B Corp certification: Exploring firms’ entrepreneurial orientation and prosocial motivation
Pollack, J. M., Garcia, R., Michaelis, T. L., Hanson, S., Carr, J. C., & Sheats, L. (2020). Academy of Management Discoveries.
A policy mix experiment to promote start-up success: Exploratory evaluation of the NSF Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)/Membership in Industry University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) supplement
Gray, D. O., McGowen, L., Michaelis, T. L., Leonchuk, L., Rivers, D. (2020). Journal of Technology Transfer.
Knowledge for Every Level
OVERVIEW OF COURSES
GRADUATE COURSES
Strategy
Core strategy course integrating tools such as PESTEL analysis, Porter's 5 Forces, SWOT analysis, Value Chain, among others with real world business cases and an applied project.
Management of Technology
Converting new technologies into viable products by critically evaluating customer needs in order to launching new ventures or corporate spinoffs.
Special Topics: Data Driven Decision Making
Using analytical and statistical modeling to help improve critical business decisions to support innovation.
Voice of the Customer analysis, Survey Development, R programming
UNDERGRADUATE COURSES
Introduction to Entrepreneurship (300 level)
Creativity, Entrepreneurship, & Innovation (300 level)
Finance and Accounting for Entrepreneurs / Business Model Implementation (400 level)
Introduction to Business Processes (200 level)
WORKSHOP "SHORT" COURSES
Introduction to R programming, statistical modeling, and data visualization
From installing R and R Studio, getting statistical packages installed, organizing data, plots, and running simple statistical analysis. This course is designed as a short 1 day or "1 credit hour" introductory course.
Process Modeling: Understanding Time as a Variable
An introduction to Growth Modeling, Measurement Invariance, Mediation, Multi-level mediation, Time lagged regression, and Panel Models in R. Recommended pre-requisites: Regression and Structural Equation Modeling.
Developing Value Propositions and Evaluating Business Models
An applied, intensive, workshop designed to perfect a new ventures value proposition. Designed to help identify unique customer problems (i.e., needs), segment and validate first customers, and improve one's chances of getting investment from Angels and Venture Capitalists.