Marcus Crews, Ph.D.

Biography

Marcus Crews is assistant professor of entrepreneurship and strategy in the College of Business Administration (CBA) at Loyola Marymount University (LMU). His research interests lie at the intersection of entrepreneurship and strategic management, and are complemented by integrating theoretical perspectives and research methods from psychology and cognitive science. In particular, Professor Crews’s research focuses on psychological determinants of entrepreneurs’ behavior and examines the relationship between entrepreneurs’ cognitions and behaviors which include, but are not limited to, performance appraisal, business model design, resource acquisition, and market entry.

Professor Crews has conducted research supported by grants from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and National Science Foundation (NSF) and has published in leading peer-reviewed journals. Marcus earned his B.A. in psychology, MBA with specializations in entrepreneurship, marketing, and supply chain management, and Ph.D. in organization management from Rutgers University, where he was James Dickson Carr scholar and Presidential Graduate Fellow.

As an entrepreneur, Crews has won awards, been involved with several start-ups as (co-)founder or as an early employee/consultant, and holds numerous certificates in various areas of entrepreneurial management for research/science/technology-intensive ventures.

Education (3)

Rutgers University: Ph.D., Organization Management 2022

Rutgers University: MBA, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Supply Chain Management 2013

Rutgers University: B.A., Psychology 2009

Areas of Expertise (3)

Microfoundations

Entrepreneurial Cognition

Strategic Cognition

Affiliations (3)

• Academy of Management (AOM)
• Strategic Management Society (SMS)
• United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE)

Articles (3)

Entreprenology of Formal & Informal Education, Co-Curricular & Extra-Curricular Programming, Vocational and Technical Entrepreneuring, and Learning from Failure to Support Entrepreneurial Empowerment

Entrepreneurial Communities and Ecosystems: Theories in Culture, Empowerment, and Leadership (2021)

This chapter is an overview of ways to help youths, young adults, and potential entrepreneurs to be better equipped for entrepreneuring, self-sufficiency, and contributions to society. Not only does entrepreneurship education support entrepreneurial outcomes among youth and young adults, but more than one kind of education is likely necessary to help in framing a student or budding entrepreneur’s journey of learning, application, and both success and failure in the process. Such ‘entrepreneurship education’ comes from both formal and informal opportunities. Chapter 5 discusses entreprenology in K-12, higher education, and vocational and career technical education. Entreprenology is the study of entrepreneurs and the epistemology of entrepreneurship. These framings help us come to know entrepreneurial action through our own construction of reality (Fletcher, 2007). Since entrepreneurial action relies on a mix of both codified knowledge (i.e., classroom-based theory in business concepts and people dynamics) and tacit knowledge (aka hands-on and ideally applied), this chapter examines the relationship among various educational supports (both for-credit and non-credit) as well as entrepreneurial skills, competencies, and business performance (Honig & Martin, 2014). The chapter also connects to the ‘entrepreneurship pipeline’ concept developed by Lichtenstein and Lyons (2010) in their book, Investing in Entrepreneurs, and examines how new educational tools are being used to ‘prime’ the pipeline even from an early age. Finally, the chapter explores non-credit, co-curricular and extra-curricular programming; learning from failure; and community entrepreneurship training resources. All of these concepts are useful for entrepreneurial empowerment through implementation by social, economic, political, and academic thought leaders.

Micro-foundations of Technology Cluster Emergence: Evidence from Johannesburg, South Africa and Medellin, Colombia

Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship (2020)

Many regions are either without technology clusters or in early stages of their development. This paper uses a micro-foundations perspective to understand the potential for technology development, new venture creation and market creation to occur in these regions. The study surveys people from two city-regions in the Global South — Medellin, Colombia, and Johannesburg, South Africa. The results show that in these two cities that have developed different reputations for innovation, different micro-foundation profiles are present. General support is found for our hypothesis that regional micro-foundations may drive the progress toward technology cluster formation.

A Theoretical Model of Values and Behaviors that Shape Technology Region Emergence in Developing Contexts

Small Business Economics (2020)

The research on emerging cluster regions often focuses on infrastructure that is needed to create these regions at the macro-economic level, with minimal consideration of the micro-level human factors that drive these regions. In this study, we develop a theoretical model of micro-level behaviors—that is individual level—that are needed within regions to produce the knowledge, entrepreneurial, and market making functions of innovation systems. Our core argument is that it is through a critical mass of individuals with these behaviors, that an innovation system that supports technology regions will emerge.