Patrick Shulist

Assistant Professor of Sustainability in Business

  • Institution Aalto University
  • Department/faculty Business School, Entrepreneurship

My research has two main streams, both of which focus on international development and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa. First, I take a qualitative approach to understanding the “natural” course of entrepreneurship in Ghana; that is, how entrepreneurship happens in the absence of international development efforts. This research stream grew out of my frustration with seeing development organizations consistently teaching entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa in much the same way it is taught in Canada, or Finland. My second research stream focuses on collaboratively working with international development organizations to solve their pressing challenges. This generally involves using randomized field experiments to test designed solutions under real-world characteristics. The goal here is to bridge the gap between producing work that is theoretically interesting, and producing work that is practically important. Two ongoing projects of this nature are happening in Ghana and Tanzania.