Laurier Professor Nicole Coviello named inaugural Lazaridis Chair of International Entrepreneurship and Innovation

June 26, 2020

Professor Nicole Coviello has been appointed as the first Lazaridis Chair of International Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Wilfrid Laurier University’s Lazaridis School of Business and Economics. Coviello’s five-year appointment is the first of its kind at Laurier, mandated to provide leadership in the development of a research program on the growth and internationalization of scaling firms. The Chair is funded by the Lazaridis Institute for the Management of Technology Enterprises.

“Professor Coviello is an internationally recognized scholar in marketing, international business and entrepreneurship, focusing on high-growth tech and digital firms,” said Micheál J. Kelly, dean of the Lazaridis School. “She brings a wealth of knowledge with hands-on experience working directly with pioneering companies across industries essential to Canadian prosperity. Her cutting-edge research output is an invaluable asset to her discipline, to Canada’s high-technology ecosystem and to the Lazaridis School.”

As the one of the co-founders of the Lazaridis Institute, and its first Research Director, Coviello led its research-related activities, investigating the key issues facing managers of growing technology firms. In that role, she built an international network of scholars to join Lazaridis faculty in conducting research that is informative for high-growth technology companies.

For the past 10 years, Coviello has also been the Associate Editor of the world’s premiere journal for entrepreneurship, Journal of Business Venturing (JBV). At JBV, she has responsibility for research in international entrepreneurship and research at the marketing/entrepreneurship interface. Coviello also sits on a number of other editorial boards and is a Consulting Editor at the Journal of International Business Studies, the leading journal in international business.

“I am excited about this new position, and hope to provide additional leadership to the Lazaridis School’s research and teaching,” said Coviello. “I regularly collaborate with industry partners for research and most of my current research involves fieldwork. For example, I am managing a two-year study with about 100 young technology firms. This research is funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and involves a mix of faculty and graduate students. Driving a project like this requires considerable effort in both relationship building and maintaining participant engagement. To help with this, we share the results with our firms as we move through the data collection process.”

A rising global driving force on the management of high-growth technology companies and the first of its kind in Canada, the Lazaridis Institute was established in 2016 to increase national prosperity by making Canadian technology firms reach their next level of growth, and for their entrepreneurs to become internationally competitive through its singular Scale-Up Program and a global network of expert mentors.

“Professor Coviello will guide the Institute towards innovative research to help develop novel understandings about management of technology companies,” said Dean Kelly. “Along with the rest of the Lazaridis Institute team and prominent visiting professors, she will strive to create links between international research, management best practices and curriculum to directly benefit our students.”

“Having been the Research Director of the Lazaridis Institute, I have a great foundation to further develop research on scaling firms,” said Coviello. “In particular, I would like the Lazaridis Institute and Lazaridis School to be part of the first wave of ‘scaling’ research that has yet to fully emerge. As a point of explanation, the term ‘scaling’ is often mis-used as a synonym for growth. I want to clarify the difference between these two concepts – and the management implications that result – using strong data.”

Prior to joining Laurier, Coviello held positions at the University of Auckland and University of Calgary. She is from Saskatoon and earned an Honours Bachelor of Commerce and Master of Science in Technology Management at the University of Saskatchewan. Coviello holds a PhD in Marketing and International Business from the University of Auckland and she received an honorary Doctor of Economics from the University of Turku. She co-founded and led the Contemporary Marketing Practices research program at the University of Auckland, a 10-year research program across 18 countries. Most recently, she initiated and led a research project with the European Innovation Academy, comprised of a cross-disciplinary team of faculty from Berkeley and the Lazaridis School. Her other research collaborations included a three-year project to write a Handbook of Measures for International Entrepreneurship. She publishes with scholars from all over the world and manages a relatively large team of graduate students in Marketing.

“As the Lazaridis Chair, I will continue to provide research leadership and teaching excellence to the School,” said Coviello. “I hope to mentor within my areas of knowledge, but also to other disciplines, in an effort to support both the School and the Lazaridis Institute.”