Eva Fast, professor of Marketing and Innovation in the Business Department at John Brown University, has spent the last four and a half years earning her doctorate in business administration through George Fox University. She delivered her dissertation just a few weeks ago.
Fast grew up as a missionary kid in Kenya. She attended JBU for her undergraduate and master’s degrees. Fast was originally drawn to studying business because she noticed business was so helpful in the mission field. “I love the versatility of business, and I saw the need for it around the world. It can unlock challenging places,” she said.
While earning her masters, she began teaching classes while another professor took leave to write their dissertation. “I fell in love with teaching that year,” Fast said. “I never thought I would go into teaching, and now I’ve been here ever since.” Fast has now been teaching in the business department for 10 years.
Fast’s dissertation, called “A New Model of Opportunity Recognition: Linking Individual Agency, Entrepreneurial Action, and the Innovation Process,” earned the praise of her peers and others. “It’s like you’ve lifted up the engine and looked inside of something I wasn’t even conscious I was doing,” one of the entrepreneurs she interviewed said. Her final dissertation included selective interviews with prolific entrepreneurs, critiques of past research on the topic and a unique model of successful business startups that she created. “When I started teaching this capstone business planning and design class, I saw so many students who didn’t think of themselves as creative or entrepreneurial, and, when they finished the class, they loved it,” she said. “They couldn’t go anywhere without spotting ideas for new businesses … That’s why I picked this topic for my dissertation.”
“Sensing, creating and perceiving a new opportunity is the most fundamental entrepreneurial behavior, and, yet, it’s the most difficult to understand.” Fast noticed that the literature on entrepreneurship and innovation is lacking. “There’s a gap in understanding on the structure and process of innovation, so I developed a model that ties it all together.”
Sitting in her office full of flowers and giant congratulatory cards from her students, she recalled how much work has gone into this achievement. The program consisted of three years of classes, a series of comprehensive exams, and a year in preparation for her dissertation. The hardest moment was the comprehensive exams which took six days to complete. Conveniently, a tornado came through, and she had no power for three days.
The highlight of the program was “knowing my students were on this journey with me, cheering me on and supporting me in this larger goal,” Fast said. Her students gifted her a stethoscope to wear as a “doctor” and even asked Fast to give her dissertation presentation in front of the class. “This was the most gratifying experience, and, since I’ve developed as a researcher and a scholar, it’s opening up lots of possibilities for the future.”
Fast plans to continue teaching and hopes to publish her dissertation in a top-tier journal. She also plans to use her model to help local businesses and “teach people at all levels of an organization how to spot a new business opportunity,” she said. She also hopes to equip educators with a better way to teach students to see potential businesses and become entrepreneurial thinkers.