By Stephen Stone and Olivia Sanchez
Created as a major hub for innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration, the Liguori Entrepreneurship Analysis & Development (LEAD) Lab is showing how Florida State University is becoming a worldwide leader in entrepreneurial studies.
Spearheaded by Eric Liguori, a professor and associate dean of the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship, the LEAD Lab has a dual-focus mission that includes conducting academically rigorous research and developing impactful programs that directly benefit the community and society at large.
It was an idea borne out of the need for a collaborative structure in the field of entrepreneurship.
"The genesis was to try and build something that would apply to entrepreneurship, allow us to bridge across disciplines, and borrow the structure and the idea from other places on campus," Liguori stated.
"The genesis was to try and build something that would apply to entrepreneurship, allow us to bridge across disciplines, and borrow the structure and the idea from other places on campus."
– Eric Liguori, professor and associate dean of the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship
Liguori's vision for the LEAD Lab is clear: engage students, train the next generation of researchers, and focus on work that has real-world impact.
Student engagement emphasizes the importance of creating impactful research using real-world applications and fostering teamwork among students from diverse academic backgrounds. This hands-on approach allows students to gain practical experience, pushing them out of their comfort zones and enhancing their interpersonal skills and research capabilities.
One significant project undertaken by the LEAD Lab was interviewing Ukrainian entrepreneurs to understand how they adapt and survive amid conflict. These findings were presented at the Morehouse Symposium in April, showcasing the lab's broadening impact.
"I started to have our students attend different events and network the rooms they were in, talking to other entrepreneurs," Liguori added. "They would get up at 6 a.m. and do Zoom interviews with Ukrainian entrepreneurs, and we originally started doing them together but then they adjusted and would do them on their own. We've pushed them out of their comfort zone quite a bit and they rose to the occasion."
The LEAD Lab students benefited from gaining knowledge on entrepreneurial life in other parts of the world and were encouraged by the openness of the interviewees in Ukraine.
"With entrepreneurs operating their businesses in Ukraine, we were trying to understand what's been the impact of this conflict on these businesses and these people," Liguori said. "We realized as we started talking to them that they were genuinely interested in shining a light on their sort of lived experience in this unique context."
The lab's research efforts are wide-ranging and impactful. Another notable project involves evaluating the economic impact of the Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship and expanding its global reach in Mumbai, India, with a new artificial intelligence-based partnership involving Universal AI University.
"We're just starting to scratch the surface on what we can do," Liguori said. "Universal AI University is an interesting university. It's focused solely on AI. They want to interject entrepreneurship across everything they do. When we were talking with them, we were really looking at this saying, 'Is this a way for us?' We think that there's a tremendous amount of opportunity to study family firms in that region and grow the reach of Jim Moran College."
Operating in an ethical manner is a foundational value of the LEAD Lab. Working with different types of populations, the lab ensures transparency and fairness and emphasizes the importance of handling data with integrity, especially when gathering sensitive background information on individuals.
"Ethics is the foundation on which we work," Liguori said. "Everything we do complies with ethical principles and university policy."
The LEAD Lab is becoming an example of how interdisciplinary collaboration, student engagement, and research can come together to create a powerful force for innovation and entrepreneurship - impacting populations worldwide.
