The opportunity to teach at a Big Ten business school drew Dr. Chris Tuggle to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln College of Business Administration last fall. The prospect of having a blank canvas for his research was intriguing to the assistant professor of management.  

“I came to Nebraska because I wanted to work with Dean Donde Plowman and be a part of a Big Ten business school. We are going to be pushed to be better by our peers in the conference and that excites me. It is structurally a good thing,” Tuggle said. “We are entrepreneurs as we navigate our path through the Big Ten.”

Tuggle earned a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in 2004 in business administration with emphases in strategic management and entrepreneurship. Prior to UNL he was on the faculty at the Trulaske College of Business at the University of Missouri. He currently does research in CEO and corporate board composition and effectiveness. In the future, he would like to research family entrepreneurship.  

“I grew up in a small town in southwest Missouri in a family of entrepreneurs. In small towns or rural areas, you have to be an entrepreneur to earn a living. You have to market yourself,” he said.

In December, Tuggle and his colleagues were published in the Strategic Management Journal for their research on how the passage of federal regulation, making it easier for some shareholders to make board nominations, improved the value of company shares the day the ruling was passed. As a result, he was featured in the inaugural CBA Contemporary Faculty Research newsletter in February and awarded the Distinguished Research Award at the Faculty Staff Awards Reception in April.

His recent publications include, “Shareholder Influence Over Director Nomination Via Proxy Access: Implications for Agency Conflict and Stakeholder Value,” in the Strategic Management Journal; “Attention Patterns in the Boardroom: How Board Composition and Processes Affect Discussion of Entrepreneurial Issues,” in the Academy of Management Journal; “The Philosophical Foundations of a Radical Austrian Approach to Entrepreneurship,” in the Journal of Management Inquiry; “Dynamic Creation: Extending the Radical Austrian Approach to Entrepreneurship,” in Organization Studies; and “Reigning in Activist Funds,” in the Harvard Business Review. 

“Working on research is like creating a piece of art. You are able to be analytical and creative while doing research which is something you can’t do in accounting,” Tuggle explained. “As a scholar, I am always looking for what is possible. There is definitely an art to doing research.” Published: August 19, 2013