Chad Saunders

Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Haskayne School of Business

Dr. Chad Saunders is an Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary. Chad holds adjunct appointments with the Department of Community Health Sciences and the Department of Medicine at the Cumming School of Medicine, where he is the eHealth Services and Strategy Lead with the healthcare innovation incubator w21c.org. Chad received both a BSc (Applied Mathematics) and MBA from Memorial University of Newfoundland and a PhD (Management Information Systems) from the Haskayne School of Business. Chad also holds the ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors. His research interests include the support that entrepreneurs draw upon in starting and scaling their ventures, the ethical decision-making processes that entrepreneurs engage in, and the role of disruptive technology in enabling and constraining ventures within a healthcare context. His work is published in leading journals, including Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, Journal of Business Venturing, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, and Research Policy.

Entrepreneurial support is not equally or equitably available to all individuals, especially intersectional entrepreneurs (e.g., women, Indigenous, immigrants). Current insights on supporting intersectional entrepreneurs relies heavily on cross-sectional 'snapshots' of the entrepreneurs’ activities, however, the limitation of this approach is becoming increasingly apparent. What is needed instead is longitudinal data that follows a panel of intersectional entrepreneurs over time as they launch and grow their ventures. Therefore, I am proposing to develop a cohort study of intersectional entrepreneurs to deeply consider the factors both enabling and constraining their ventures over time and the interplay between the support they need and the support available."

Dr. Chad Saunders, PhD

Chad Saunders, Associate Professor