Contact: James Carskadon

STARKVILLE, Miss.—International scholars are recognizing Mississippi State University as a top-10 global institution for impactful entrepreneurship research.

A forthcoming article in the Journal of Small Business Management ranks MSU No. 6 in the world for the impact of its entrepreneurship research. The same study ranked James J. Chrisman, head of MSU’s Department of Management and Information Systems, as the No. 6 leading individual contributor to entrepreneurship research.  The rankings are based on a study that examined more than 2,100 entrepreneurship articles published in leading journals from 2002-2013, measuring citations per article and other citation analyses.

“It means a great deal to me for the MSU College of Business to be considered as one of the top 10 most influential schools for entrepreneurship research,” College of Business Dean Sharon Oswald said. “Entrepreneurship and family business is a focus area of the college and our faculty have done an outstanding job of following through on this mission. For us to have risen to the point of international recognition and for Dr. Chrisman to personally be singled out as the sixth most influential scholar in the area is a phenomenal accomplishment.”

MSU and Texas A&M (No. 9) are the only Southeastern Conference schools among the top 50 in the rankings. MSU placed ahead of Harvard University (No. 17), Stanford University (No. 20) and the University of Virginia (No. 26), among others.

“Mississippi State’s research portfolio is extraordinarily diverse and covers a wide range disciplines, and these rankings are a testament to that and to the world-class faculty we have on campus,” said David Shaw, MSU’s vice president for research and economic development. “I applaud the College of Business, Dean Oswald and Dr. Chrisman for their latest achievements.”

Chrisman leads MSU’s Center of Family Enterprise Research, which promotes original research on family business and disseminates the results of research to family businesses throughout the U.S., and Mississippi in particular, in order to improve their management and performance. The center has also been listed among the best family research centers in the world by Family Business Review, Chinese Economic Quarterly and the Handbook of Research on Family Business. Chrisman, a College of Business faculty member since 2002, has led the Center of Family Enterprise Research since 2007 and was recently named to the Clarivate Analytics 2017 Highly Cited Researcher list.

“The entire management faculty associated with the Center of Family Enterprise Research feel blessed and honored to have contributed to the recognition of Mississippi State University as one of the top institutions worldwide in entrepreneurship research, a subject area which includes our particular focus on family business research,” Chrisman said.

“Our success has been a result of an entrepreneurial effort by a team of researchers who, with the particular support of the dean of the College of Business and the vice president of research and economic development, have followed a strategy based on a vision of the benefits of a focused and sustained research program,” he added.

The Journal of Small Business Management article, titled “Contributing Forces in Entrepreneurship Research: A Global Citation Analysis,” was written by researchers from the Renmin University of China, Western Kentucky University and the University of Washington.

For more on MSU’s College of Business, visit www.business.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.