The Culverhouse College of Business maintains seminar series devoted to encouraging interdisciplinary efforts to deal with complex research problems.
Fall 2025
Spring 2026
All sessions are from 1:30-3:00 p.m. in Hewson Hall 2004.
Each semester Culverhouse will host talks by up to two high-profile speakers whose research spans multiple disciplines.
Abstract:
We propose a refined scale-development process model that builds on existing standards while emphasizing the role of theory for creating meaningful, valid, and novel scales. Further, we use a “methods-in-use” approach to systematically review scale-development papers published in premiere marketing journals over the past 25 years to identify areas both where marketing scholars appropriately use established guidelines, but also where elements are executed with insufficient rigor. This leads to recommendations to help scholars avoid some common pitfalls. Finally, drawing on recent methodological advances (e.g., the emergence of GenAI), we delineate emergent best practices for creating high-quality scales.
Abstract:
Return migration has emerged as a key conduit for knowledge transfer and entrepreneurial development globally. However, scholarly understanding of what drives different forms of returnee entrepreneurial success remains fragmented. This study employs a configurational approach to theory and empirics to investigate the pathways to two distinct forms of entrepreneurial success among returnee entrepreneurs: venture growth and entrepreneurial satisfaction. Using multi-value Qualitative Comparative Analysis (mvQCA) and data from 212 returnee entrepreneurs in China, supplemented by in-depth interviews, we identify three equifinal pathways leading to venture growth and four pathways to entrepreneurial satisfaction. Our findings reveal that distinct causal mechanisms (knowledge transfer, network embeddedness, institutional support) different forms of entrepreneurial success; the same condition can be beneficial in some combinations while irrelevant in others. Our study contributes to entrepreneurship research and global migration by revealing the configurational complexity underlying entrepreneurial success and highlighting multiple channels through which returnees contribute to economic development in local markets.