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Sara Elias

Gustavson researcher Sara Elias

Associate Professor

Contact:
Office: BEC 228 250-721-6244
Credentials:
Master of Music, Missouri State University; MBA, Missouri State University; PhD in Business Administration, University of Missouri
Area of expertise:
Arts entrepreneurship, aesthetics in organizations and entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship as practice, entrepreneurial imagining, creative entrepreneurial processes, qualitative methodologies
Related links:

Biography

Dr. Sara Elias joined the Gustavson School of Business in 2016. She brings a passion for understanding how entrepreneurs use their imaginations to create novel ideas by reflecting on their past and present experiences as a means of shaping the future and by collaborating with customers, both real and imagined. Sara is also passionate about researching qualitative methodologies, striving for an in-depth understanding of researchers’ experiences and challenges in the field as they engage in the process of “doing” qualitative research in organizations and management.

Sara’s primary research interests relate to exploring how novelty emerges from entrepreneurs’ thoughts, perceptions, images and actions, as well as from their interactions with the surrounding environment. Bridging the entrepreneurship and organizational aesthetics literatures, her work embraces philosophical assumptions such as relationality, interdependence and intersubjectivity. Her most recent research examines how creative entrepreneurial processes unfold within a variety of arts entrepreneurship settings, shedding light on the processes of creative imagination and the co-creation of aesthetic value. Broadly, her research interests include creative entrepreneurial processes, entrepreneurial imagining, arts entrepreneurship, aesthetics in organizations and entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship as practice and qualitative methodologies. Sara’s primary teaching interests are in entrepreneurship, strategy, organizational behaviour and organizational theory. Both her teaching and research have been recognized with several awards. Her academic interests stem from her background in business, engineering and music, as well as from her experience as an entrepreneur, music manager, performing artist and managing director of Associação CICO, an international centre for promoting the performing arts, headquartered in Portugal.

Sara is associate editor of the Scandinavian Journal of Management and is a member of the editorial boards of Art, Culture & Entrepreneurship and Organizações & Sociedade. She has also served as a special issue co-guest editor at Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management. Sara has published in Organization Studies, Organization Theory, Organization, Journal of Management Inquiry, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, and Organizational Research Methods.

Teaching

Courses taught

Selected publications

Journal publications

Elias, S. R. S. T. A., Chiles, T. H., & Crawford, B. (2022). Entrepreneurial imagining: How a small team of arts entrepreneurs created the world’s largest traveling carillon. Organization Studies, 43(2), 203-226. https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406211035501 

Vogt, S., Bulgacov, Y. L. M.., & Elias, S. R. S. T. A. (2022) Entrepreneurial learning: Aesthetic and sensible knowledge in the life trajectory of entrepreneurs. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 28(2), 283-305. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-04-2020-0204 

Duncan, C. M., & Elias, S. R. S. T. A. (2021). (Inter)subjectivity in the research pair: Countertransference and radical reflexivity in organizational research. Organization, 28(4), 662-684. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508420928524 

Crawford, B., Chiles, T. H., & Elias, S. R. S. T. A. (2021). Long interviews in organizational research: Unleashing the power of ‘show and tell.’ Journal of Management Inquiry, 30(3), 331-346. https://doi.org/10.1177/1056492620930096 

Chiles, T. H., Crawford, B., & Elias, S. R. S. T. A. (2021). Mind, body, and soul: A spiritual perspective on the entrepreneurial imagination. Organization Theory, 2(2), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1177/26317877211005786 

Elias, S. R. S. T. A., Chiles, T. H., Li, Q., & D’Andrea, F. A. M. C. (2020). Austrian economics and organizational entrepreneurship: A typology. The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 23(3-4), 313-354. https://doi.org/10.35297/qjae.010073

deGama, N., Elias, S. R. S. T. A., & Peticca-Harris, A. (2019). The good academic: Re-imagining good research in organization and management studies. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, 14(1), 2–9. https://doi.org/10.1108/QROM-03-2019-681

Elias, S. R. S. T. A., Chiles, T. H., Duncan, C. M., & Vultee, D. M. (2018). The aesthetics of entrepreneurship: How arts entrepreneurs and their customers co-create aesthetic value. Organization Studies, 39(2-3), 345–372. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840617717548

Peticca-Harris, A., deGama, N., & Elias, S. R. S. T. A. (2016). A dynamic process model for finding informants and gaining access in qualitative research. Organizational Research Methods, 19(3), 376–401. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1094428116629218?rss=1

Chiles, T. H., Elias, S. R. S. T. A., Zarankin, T. G., & Vultee, D. M. (2013). The kaleidic world of entrepreneurs: Developing and grounding a metaphor for creative imagination. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, 8(3), 276–307. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/QROM-05-2012-1070/full/html

Chapters

Vultee, D. M., Chiles, T. H., & Elias, S. R. S. T. A. (2022). Entrepreneurial imagination: A Blakean perspective. In K. Pavlovich and G. Markman (Eds.), World Scientific Encyclopedia of Business Sustainability, Ethics and Entrepreneurship, Volume 3: Spirituality, Entrepreneurship and Social Change (pp. 25-55). Singapore: World Scientific. https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811248887_0002

Chiles, T. H., Elias, S. R. S. T. A., & Li, Q. (2017). Entrepreneurship as process. In A. Langley and H. Tsoukas (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Process Organization Studies (pp. 432–450). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Awards & grants

Recognition & awards

Grants