Alex Murray

Assistant Professor of Management

Affiliations: Management, Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship

Email: amm16@uoregon.edu

Phone: 541-346-3318

Office: Anstett 398C

Download CV

On this page:
About

About

Biography:

Alex Murray's research focuses on developing theoretical frameworks to explain how entrepreneurs mobilize resources from distributed resource providers and how distributed resource providers use novel technologies to coordinate resource allocations. He addresses empirical and theoretical puzzles stemming from the technologically-driven phenomena of crowdfunding, blockchain-based firms, and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). Theoretically, he contributes to the literatures on organizational theory, strategy, and entrepreneurship by unpacking how entrepreneurs obtain and maintain support from many distributed resource providers over time. Methodologically, he complements inductive field-based approaches with statistical analyses to develop novel insights and advance existing theories in intriguing ways.

Degree History:

PhD, University of Washington, 2018
MS, University of Virginia, 2012
BS, University of Alabama, 2011

Previous Positions:

Senior Researcher, ETH Zurich, 2018–2019

Professional Leadership:

Guest Editor, Special Topic Forum on "AI in Management", Academy of Management Review
Editorial Review Board Member, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal
Editorial Review Board Member, Academy of Management Review

Honors and Awards:

Best Reviewer Award, Academy of Management Review, 2023
Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award, Lundquist College of Business, 2023
Consumer Protection Grant Award, University of Oregon, 2023
Goulet Outstanding Research Award, Lundquist College of Business, 2023
Dave Petrone Financial Literacy and Wellness Research Award, Lundquist College of Business, 2022
Best Paper Award, Academy of Management Review, 2022
Best Reviewer Award, Academy of Management Review, 2022
Outstanding Faculty in Entrepreneurship, Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship, 2022
Best Reviewer Award, Journal of Business Venturing, 2021
Most Developmental Reviewer Award, Academy of Management Review, 2021
Translational Research Grant, Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship, 2020
COVID-19 Impact Grant Award, 2020
New Junior Faculty Research Award, University of Oregon, 2019

Areas of Expertise

Crowdfunding
Decentralized governance
Distributed ledger technology
Entrepreneurship
Innovation
Resource mobilization
Technology entrepreneurship
Venture finance

Current Projects

Murray, Alex, Benjamin L. Hallen, and Suresh Kotha. "Levered Replication: A Study of How Entrepreneurs Quickly and Effectively Learn New Capabilities for Their Nascent Organizations."
Murray, Alex, Farhan Iqbal, and Susan Cohen. "Legitimacy Buffers: How Ventures Maintain Stakeholder Support in the Face of Operational Legitimacy Threats."
Hmaddi, Ouafaa, Lauren Lanahan, and Alex Murray. "The Impact of Nonprivileged Catalysts on Entrepreneurial Action."
Basit, Ameer, Michael Johnson, Ussama A. Khan, and Alex Murray. "Ego-centrists, Collaborators, and Socializers: How Tie-forming Motivations Impact Pivoting."
Rhymer, Jen, Alex Murray, and David Sirmon. "The Advent of Synthetic Stakeholders: How the Natural Environment Achieves Salience in Organizations."
Heidl, Ralph, Purushothaman Padmanabhan, and Alex Murray. "Trust in Human-Nonhuman Collaborations."
Brewer, Jordan, Dennie Kim, Alex Murray, and Dhru Patel. "Assessing the Blockchain-Artificial Intelligence Ensemble."

Publications

Journal Articles:

Murray, Alex, Dennie Kim, and Jordan Combs. "The Promise of a Decentralized Internet: What is Web 3.0 and How Can Firms Prepare?" Business Horizons, forthcoming. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2022.06.002.

June 2022

Murray, Alex, and Greg Fisher. "When More is Less: Explaining the Curse of Too Much Capital for Early-Stage Ventures." Organization Science, forthcoming. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2021.1568.

November 2021

Murray, Alex, Scott Kuban, Matthew Josefy, and Jonathan Anderson. "Contracting in the Smart Era: The Implications of Blockchain and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations for Contracting and Corporate Governance." Academy of Management Perspectives 35, no. 4: 622-641. https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2018.0066.

November 2021

Murray, Alex, Jen Rhymer, and David G. Sirmon. "Humans and Technology: Forms of Conjoined Agency in Organizations." Academy of Management Review 46, no. 3: 552-571. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2019.0186.

July 2021

Hallen, Benjamin L., Jason P. Davis, and Alex Murray. "Entrepreneurial Network Evolution: Explicating the Structural Localism and Agentic Network Change Distinction." Academy of Management Annals 14, no. 2: 1067-1102. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2018.0063.

July 2020

Murray, Alex, Suresh Kotha, and Greg Fisher. "Community-Based Resource Mobilization: How Entrepreneurs Acquire Resources from Distributed Non-Professionals via Crowdfunding." Organization Science, 31, no. 4: 960-989. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2019.1339.

July 2020

Cases:

Huang, Laura, Maximilian Enthoven, Alex Murray, and Erik Hofmann. "modum.io (B): Bidding Farewell to Crypto." Harvard Business School Case N9-421-068.

January 2021

Huang, Laura, Dominik Roeck, Alex Murray, and Erik Hofmann. "modum.io: Funding a Blockchain-based Start-up's Supply Chain Solution." Harvard Business School Case N9-420-006.

January 2020

Murray, Alex, and Suresh Kotha. "Kickstarter: Using Crowdfunding to Launch a New Board Game." In Strategic Management, edited by F. T. Rothaermel. Burr Ridge, IL: McGraw-Hill.

January 2020

In the News

Setting the Pace for Management Excellence

Lundquist College management faculty are teaching at the highest levels, out-researching some major names in academia, and publishing in the field's top journals, all while earning notice for excellence in teaching.

Simple digital art design of people, shapes, and objects

Awarding Financial Wellness Research

Four awardees earned special funding to continue and expand the study of financial literacy and wellness.

Graphic icon art of a personal drone in white against a green background

The True Cost of Crowdfunding

Research by management professor Alex Murray and coauthor examined why some tech ventures fail on crowdfunding platforms despite meeting their financing goals.