Areas of expertise
Biography
Before and after defending my doctoral thesis in marketing in 2004 I focused in investigating entrepreneurship at the individual, firm, and societal levels. Already during that very period of time I worked as a researcher/senior researcher at the Entrepreneurship Unit, School of Economics at the University of Turku. In 2007-2009 I worked as a visiting research scholar at the George Mason University (VA, USA), and between 2018-2019 I worked as an Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship at the Pori Unit at the University of Turku.
Currently, I work as a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship. In my current research endeavors I focus on entrepreneurial, decision making, behavior, and nascent venturing, Moreover, we just finished a long DISCE-project (funded by EU H2020) which focused on earning logics and entrepreneurship in creative and cultural industries and professionals.Currently, I'm investigating for the Finnish government how we could get more new entrepreneurs.
Teaching
I teach entrepreneurship at University of Turku, School of Economics. My pedagogical approach is not to teach, but to expose students to entrepreneurial thinking and behavior. It's about creating a learning enviroment to support curiosity.
Most rewarding teaching load has been our star, Startup! course, during which students from the University of Turku, University of Applied Sciences, University of Human Applied Sciences and Åbo Akademi, are exposed to entrepreneurial behavior, idea validation and similar magic. It was awared as the most entrepreneurial act at the University of Turku in 2016. In this course, I have been mentoring over hundred student-based startup teams in their early stages. Nice.
I have also had a privilege to participate in planning and conducting the innovation process for the Business Innovation Camps organized by Turku School of Economics' CCR, and in teaching University of Turku's Graduage School's courses and TSE exe's MBA-education. Eat failure for breakfast!
Research
Well, it varies, but currently I investigate among others how entrepreneurs construct the concept of luck, the role of emotional support in pursuing new ventures, agency and emotions in entrepreneurship education, and the dimensions and connections of different types of value that entrepreneurial individuals create to name a few.