NEWS
NORMAN, OKLA. – Sean M. Dwyer, Ph.D., an assistant professor of entrepreneurship in the University of Oklahoma’s Price College of Business, received the award for the Best Paper on Social Impact at the 2025 Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference (BCERC). BCERC is widely considered the premier research conference on entrepreneurship and hosts more than 220 paper presentations each year, according to Babson College.
He joins co-authors Mitch Neubert, Ph.D., from Baylor University and OU’s Reg Tucker, Ph.D., for their paper, “Kenyan Pastors in Business: Pathways for Sharing Religious Faith in Entrepreneurship.” Babson College’s Institute for Social Innovation sponsored the $3,000 award. The project’s inclusion as a top 40 overall paper of the conference means it will be published in the annual Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research compilation.
“I have been fortunate to attend BCERC each year since I started my Ph.D. program at Baylor University, and attending has always been a highlight for me,” Dwyer said. “Receiving this award is an incredible honor. The paper demonstrates how entrepreneurship can be used not just as a tool for generating wealth, but also to advance causes people deeply care about.”
Motivated to understand how entrepreneurs pursue making a difference through their ventures, researchers partnered with a U.S. business training program helping Kenyan pastors generate income to sustain their households and ministries. Dwyer traveled to Kenya to conduct in-person observations and perform in-depth interviews for the research.
“Despite the financial hardships faced by the entrepreneurs, they were highly motivated to use their business ventures to both provide for their households and make a difference in the world that was personally meaningful to them,” Dwyer said. “We typically expect those operating small-scale, low-growth businesses in the developing world to prioritize economic gains to provide for their households above all else. However, we found that making a spiritual impact was equally, if not even more important, to these entrepreneurs.”
The study found that owning a business helped pastors make a difference in three ways: by creating natural opportunities to build relationships with members in their communities, giving them greater control over their time to volunteer in the community, and generating financial resources to support faith-based activities in their communities. In doing so, they used their ventures as platforms for spiritual impact.
Dwyer, who started the project as a Baylor doctoral student in spring 2023, said his research builds upon a growing body of academic research on purpose, meaning and faith within the field of entrepreneurship. He teaches OU’s New Venture Development II course, where he encourages students to reflect on their life goals, consider what is meaningful to them, and explore how creating a business can help achieve those goals.
“Many of our students are Gen Z, which is considered the most purpose-driven generation of our time,” Dwyer said. “Many of our students desire to make a difference with their lives and expect to do this through their work once they graduate. I believe it is our responsibility as professors to help guide them toward understanding how they can do this in their respective fields after they graduate from OU. I think entrepreneurship is a powerful way for our students to do this.”
Outside the classroom, Dwyer is also finishing a book detailing 10 ways to make a difference with a business venture. He is launching a program called The Purpose Forum this fall with Bruno Teles, an instructor of entrepreneurship in the Price College of Business, to help students discover how they can make a difference after graduation from OU. He also joined other members of the OU Entrepreneurship Division to host a ‘Live with Purpose’ event earlier this year for a group of visiting Baylor students in their school’s Business, Excellence, Scholarship and Team leadership program.
Visit the Price College of Business to learn more about OU’s entrepreneurship undergraduate and graduate degree programs.
About the University of Oklahoma
Founded in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. As the state’s flagship university, OU serves the educational, cultural, economic and health care needs of the state, region and nation. For more information about the university, visit www.ou.edu.
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