Profile Information

Profile

Chad is the Spiro Professor of Entrepreneurial Leadership at Clemson. Within the Management department, his primary initiatives include enhancing, supporting, and overseeing its undergraduate entrepreneurship curriculum, entrepreneurship scholarship, and PhD seminars in entrepreneurship. Within the University more broadly, Chad engages closely with the Spiro Institute, providing support, partnership, and faculty guidance to the Institute as a representative of the Management Department. Additionally, as a Watt Fellow, Chad is passionate about forging the type of cross-disciplinary interactions that can bolster the University's broader innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Chad joined the faculty of Clemson University after beginning his career at UW-Madison, where he was a professor in the Wisconsin School of Business. During his time at UW-Madison, Chad was actively involved in developing the entrepreneurship ecosystem of the school. He served as a principal in the Initiative for Studies in Transformational Entrepreneurship (INSITE), faculty director of the G. Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition, faculty liaison for the Qualcomm Wireless Challenge, and a faculty member of the Entrepreneurship Residential Learning Community (ERLC). Additionally, Chad oversaw the PhD Minors in Entrepreneurship and Strategic Innovation. He also remains the co-PI of an NSF grant focused on the commercialization of a 5th generation wireless technology.

Prior to his MBA and Ph.D. studies, Chad was a senior business analyst at the consultancy, American Management Systems (now CGI), where he specialized in business processes in the telecommunications sector. Additionally, Chad has worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, two family businesses, and presently advises several student start-ups.

Research Interests

• Chad's research examines a question of theoretical and practical importance: how do new market categories emerge? To do so, he focuses on the language and symbols of entrepreneurs, the interpretations and responses of their stakeholders, and the nature of and differences in these interactions as markets become more established over time. His research-which regularly blends qualitative and quantitative methods-has examined these focal dynamics in such market settings as satellite radio, local telecommunications, online groceries, and craft micro-distilleries. Chad's research has been published in the field's leading management and entrepreneurship journals, including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management Studies, and Journal of Business Venturing. His research has also received several awards, the most notable of which include consecutive IDEA "thought leader" awards for the best published entrepreneurship paper in 2010 and 2011, as designated by the Entrepreneurship division of the Academy of Management.

Research Publications

• Navis, C. (2024) Christine E. Evans and Lars Lundgren. No Heavenly Bodies: A History of Satellite Communications Infrastructure. Administrative Science Quarterly. (Book review)
• Younger, S., Preedom, J, & Navis, C. (2024). Legitimately Distinct Entrepreneurial Stories in Evolving Market Categories. Journal of Business Venturing.
• Waldron, T.L., Wetherbe, J. C., Navis, C., Karam, E., & Markman, G.D., (2024). What if Activists Target My Company? Entrepreneur and Innovation Exchange (EIX)
• Jiang, D., Simarasl, N., Pandey, S., & Navis, C. (2022). Constrained but not Contained: How Marginalized Entrepreneurs Across Institutional Contexts Overcome Bias and Mobilize Resources. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal
• Waldron, T.L., Navis, C., & Markman, G.D. (2022). Toward a Theory of Activist-Driven Responsible Innovation: How Activists Pressure Firms to Adopt More Responsible Practices. Journal of Management Studies
• Waldron, T.L., Navis, C. Aronson, O., York, J. & Pacheco, D. (2019). Values-based Rivalry: A Theoretical Framework of Rivalry Between Activists and Firms. Academy of Management Review (44).
• Waldron, T.L., Navis, C., Markman, G. (2019). Mightier Than the Sword: How Activists Use Rhetoric to Facilitate Perception Change in Industries. In Siegel, D. (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Corporate Social Responsibility: Psychological and Organizational Perspectives. Oxford University Press.
• Navis, C. & Ozbek, O. (2018). How to Spot Entrepreneurs Who Are Likely to Crash and Burn. Academy of Management Insights
• Navis, C. & Ozbek, O. (2017). Why Context Matters: Overconfidence, Narcissism, and the Role of Objective Uncertainty in Entrepreneurship. Academy of Management Review (42), 148-153.
• Navis, C. & Ozbek, O. (2016). The Right People in the Wrong Places: The Paradox of Entrepreneurial Entry and Successful Opportunity Realization. Academy of Management Review (41), 109-129.
• Waldron, T. & Fisher, G. & Navis, C. (2015). Institutional Entrepreneurs' Social Mobility in Organizational Fields. Journal of Business Venturing (30), 131-149.
• Waldron, T.L., Navis, C., Markman, G. (2014). Activists' Strategies for Confronting Firms. In Siegel, D., Markman, G., Guerber, A. & Su, W-T. (Eds.) Sustainability, Society, Business Ethics, and Entrepreneurship, World Scientific.
• Glynn, M. & Navis, C. (2013). Categories, Identities, and Cultural Classification: Moving Beyond a Model of Category Constraint. Journal of Management Studies (50), 1124-1137.
• Waldron, T. & Navis, C. & Fisher, G. (2012). Explaining Differences in Firms' Responses to Activism. Academy of Management Review (38), 397-417.
• Navis, C. & Glynn, M. (2011). Legitimate Distinctiveness and the Entrepreneurial Identity: Influence on Investor Judgments of New Venture Plausibility. Academy of Management Review (36), 479-499.
• Glynn, M. & Navis, C. (2010). Organizational Leadership and Institutional Emergence: Tuning in to "The Next Big Thing" in Satellite Radio. Research in the Sociology of Work (21), 257-286.
• Navis, C. & Glynn, M. (2010). How New Market Categories Emerge: Temporal Dynamics of Legitimacy, Identity, and Entrepreneurship in Satellite Radio, 1990-2005. Administrative Science Quarterly (55), 439-471.