Ph.D. candidate
University of
Virginia, 2006
MBA Harvard Business
School, 1991
BA Harvard College,
1987
harmelings@aol.com
I am a fourth-year
doctoral student at
the University of
Virginia in
entrepreneurship and
ethics. I made a
rather spontaneous
decision to join the
doctoral program in
the first place
after watching
positive
organizational
scholarship in
action at the
University of Osijek
in war-torn eastern
Croatia. There, an
amazing woman named
Dr. Slavica Singer
started the Graduate
Program for
Entrepreneurship, a
two-year western
style MBA program
that quickly began
to change the lives
of many young people
in that depressed
region. I watched
this unfold over a
period of 2-3 years
(I visited the area
about 8 times during
these years) and was
amazed at the
difference that this
program was making.
I saw the body
language of students
change as they were
open to hope and
possibility in their
lives for the first
time in years. I saw
people coming up
with ideas for
improving both their
own lives and the
community and
business
infrastructure
around them. I
became fascinated in
entrepreneurship
education and the
effect I saw it
making in people's
lives. I decided to
get a Ph.D. in order
to have a chance to
look more closely at
the topic, and
perhaps make a
contribution to the
way entrepreneurship
is taught.
After writing a
paper and a case
study on the Croatia
program and how it
came together, I am
now doing my
dissertation
research at the
National Foundation
for Teaching
Entrepreneurship, a
US-based
organization that
offers
entrepreneurship
programs in high
schools across the
country. This is a
qualitative study
aimed at
understanding how
students make
meaning out of what
they are
experiencing in the
program. I am very
excited about some
of the preliminary
insights that are
emerging.
Separately, and as a
natural outgrowth of
the dual
concentration in
ethics and
entrepreneurship, I
have also been
working on questions
related to the
intersection of
ethics and
innovation. How do
entrepreneurs
"innovate ethics" as
they move from one
culture to another?
What is the role of
contingency in how
we formulate both
our values and our
entrepreneurial
opportunities? What
are the parallels
between ethical
innovation and
entrepreneurial
innovation?
In all these
pursuits, I am
committed to the
idea of positive
scholarship, and I
agree with Ghoshal
(2005) who argued
that "bad management
theories" can
destroy "good
management
practices."
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