Brown-Forman Chair in Entrepreneurship
College of Business
James O. Fiet, Ph.D., is a professor of management and director of the Entrepreneurship Ph.D. program. Since arriving at U of L in 2000, he has led the business school's entrepreneurship research agenda, including the creation of a Ph.D. program in entrepreneurship in 2004, one of only three such programs in the world currently active.
Prior to his academic career, Fiet was general contractor, the founder and president of a real estate development firm, the founder and president of a real estate project management company and helped start a company that constructed buildings powered by passive solar energy.
He teaches doctoral level courses in entrepreneurship and research design. The goal is to train future scholars to enhance the quality of education for student entrepreneurs.
He is a pioneer in the area of prescriptive entrepreneurship, which develops and tests theoretical models for launching ventures and improving the performance of those ventures. His new book, Prescriptive Entrepreneurship, contains 12 original studies that test prescriptions, which aspiring entrepreneurs can use. The book is forthcoming in 2008.
He has published more than 48 peer-reviewed publications, authored or edited nine books and co-authored ten book chapters. He received the College of Business research award for 2001 and 2007 and the faculty excellence award for 2003.
In 1999, the United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship awarded him second place in a national competition for its Outstanding Entrepreneurship Pedagogy Award. The Decision Sciences Institute also has recognized his research nationally. In 2008, he is the recipient of the best empirical paper award by the United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
Fiet earned his bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University, his master's from the University of Southern California and his doctorate from Texas A&M University. He also conducted post-doctoral research in strategy, entrepreneurship and technology management at Texas A&M.