Introduction to Business

Heidi M. Neck, PhD, is a Babson College professor and the Jeffry A. Timmons Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies. She has taught entrepreneurship at the undergraduate, MBA, and executive levels. She is the academic director of the Babson Academy, a dedicated unit within Babson that inspires change in the way universities, specifically their faculty and students, teach and learn entrepreneurship. The Babson Academy builds on Neck’s work starting the Babson Collaborative, a global institutional membership organization for colleges and universities seeking to increase their capability and capacity in entrepreneurship education, and her leadership of Babson’s Symposia for Entrepreneurship Educators (SEE), programs designed to inspire faculty from around the world to teach more experientially and entrepreneurially. Neck has directly trained more than 3,500 faculty around the world in the art and craft of teaching entrepreneurship. An award-winning teacher, Neck has been recognized for teaching excellence at Babson for undergraduate, graduate, and executive education. She has also been recognized by international organizations, the Academy of Management and USASBE, for excellence in pedagogy and course design. In 2016, The Schulze Foundation awarded her Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year for pushing the frontier of entrepreneurship education in higher education. She was again recognized as Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year in 2022 by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) for her contributions that have substantively advanced how scholars think and approach entrepreneurship teaching and learning. Most recently, Neck was the recipient of the 2023 Karl Vesper Pioneer Award from the Experiential Classroom at Notre Dame for her work to expand the reach and impact of entrepreneurship education. Her research interests include entrepreneurship education with a specific interest in building entrepreneurial mindsets. Neck is the lead author of Teaching Entrepreneurship: A Practice-Based Approach, Volumes 1 and 2 (Elgar), books written to help educators teach entrepreneurship in more experiential and engaging ways. Additionally, she has published 40+ book chapters, research monographs, and refereed articles in such journals as Journal of Small Business Management, Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, and Entrepreneurship Education & Pedagogy. Neck speaks and teaches internationally on cultivating the entrepreneurial mindset and espousing the positive force of entrepreneurship as a societal change agent. She consults and trains organizations of all sizes on building entrepreneurial capacity. She is the cofounder of VentureBlocks, an education-technology company, and achieved a successful exit with FlowDog, a canine aquatic fitness and rehabilitation center located just outside of Boston. She also served on the board of a 100% family-owned, seventh-generation land-management company in Louisiana, A. Wilbert’s & Sons. Heidi earned her PhD in Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She holds a BS in Marketing from Louisiana State University and an MBA from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Dr. Christopher P. Neck is currently a Professor of Management at Arizona State University, where he held the title “University Master Teacher.” From 1994 to 2009, he was part of the Pamplin College of Business faculty at Virginia Tech. He received his Ph.D. in Management from Arizona State University and his M.B.A. from Louisiana State University. Neck is author and/or coauthor of thirty books including Self-Leadership: The Definitive Guide to Personal Excellence (1st Edition, 2017, Sage Publishers; 2nd Edition, 2019); Get a Kick Out of Life: Expect the Best of Your Body, Mind, and Soul at Any Age (2017, Clovercroft Publishing); Fit To Lead: The Proven 8-week Solution for Shaping Up Your Body, Your Mind, and Your Career (2004, St. Martin′s Press; 2012, Carpenter’s Sons Publishing); Mastering Self-Leadership: Empowering Yourself for Personal Excellence, 6th edition (2013, Pearson); The Wisdom of Solomon at Work (2001, Berrett-Koehler); For Team Members Only: Making Your Workplace Team Productive and Hassle-Free (1997, Amacom Books); and Medicine for the Mind: Healing Words to Help You Soar, 4th Edition (Wiley, 2012). Neck is also the coauthor of the principles of management textbook, Management: A Balanced Approach to the 21st Century (Wiley: 2013, Wiley: 2017-2nd Edition, Sage: 2021-3rd Edition); an introductory to entrepreneurship textbook, Entrepreneurship, (Sage, 2017; 2nd edition, 2020; 3rd edition, 2023); an introductory to organizational behavior textbook, Organizational Behavior (1st Edition-Sage, 2017; 2nd Edition-Sage, 2019; 3rd Edition-Sage, 2023), and an Introduction to Business textbook (Introduction to Business, Sage, 2022). In total, his textbooks have been adopted by 800 colleges/universities and used by over 120,000 students. Dr. Neck’s research specialties include employee/executive fitness, self-leadership, leadership, group decision-making processes, and self-managing teams. He has over 150 publications in the form of books, chapters, and articles in various journals. Some of the outlets in which Neck’s work has appeared include The Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, The Journal of Organizational Behavior, The Academy of Management Executive, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, The Journal of Managerial Psychology, Executive Excellence, Human Relations, Human Resource Development Quarterly, Journal of Leadership Studies, Educational Leadership, and The Commercial Law Journal. Dr. Neck is the Deputy Editor of the journal, the Journal of Leadership and Management. Due to Neck’s expertise in management, he has been cited in numerous national publications including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Houston Chronicle, and the Chicago Tribune. Dr. Neck was recently voted as a semi-finalist (out of 140 nominations) for the prestigious international 2020 Baylor University Cherry Award for Great Teaching. He finished in the top six of all nominations. Neck was also the recipient of the 2007 Business Week Favorite Professor Award”. He is featured on www.businessweek.com as one of the approximately twenty professors from across the world receiving this award. Dr. Neck has taught over 80,000 students during his career in higher education. Neck currently teaches a mega section of Management Principles to approximately 900 students at Arizona State University. Neck was the recipient of the 2024 and 2020 John W. Teets Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award (voted by W.P Carey School of Business students). He also received the 2024 Huizingh Outstanding Undergraduate Teacher Award within the W.P Carey School. Neck also received the Order of Omega Outstanding Teaching Award for 2012. This award is awarded to one professor at Arizona State by the Alpha Lamda Chapter of this leadership fraternity. His class sizes at Virginia Tech filled rooms up to 2500 students. He received numerous teaching awards during his tenure at Virginia Tech, including the 2002 Wine Award for Teaching Excellence. Also, Neck was the ten-time winner (1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009) of the “Students’ Choice Teacher of The Year Award” (voted by the students for the best teacher of the year within the entire university). Also, some of the organizations who have participated in Neck′s management development training include Anavate Partners, Mountainside Fitness, GE/Toshiba, Busch Gardens, Clark Construction, the United States Army, Crestar, American Family Insurance, Sales and Marketing Executives International, American Airlines, American Electric Power, W. L. Gore & Associates, Dillard′s Department Stores, and Prudential Life Insurance. Neck is also an avid runner. He has completed 12 official marathons and over 100 unofficial ones, including the Boston Marathon, New York City Marathon, and the San Diego Marathon. In fact, his personal record for a single long-distance run—is a 48-mile run.

Emma L. Murray completed a bachelor of arts degree in English and Spanish at University College Dublin (UCD) in County Dublin, Ireland. This was followed by a higher diploma (Hdip) in business studies and information technology at the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business in County Dublin, Ireland. Following her studies, she spent nearly a decade in investment banking before becoming a full-time writer and author. As a writer, she has worked on numerous texts, including business and economics, self-help, and psychology. Within the field of higher education, she worked with Dr. Christopher P. Neck and Dr. Jeffery D. Houghton on Management (Wiley: 2013, Wiley: 2017-2nd Edition, Sage: 2021-3rd Edition); an introductory to entrepreneurship textbook, Entrepreneurship, (Sage, 2017; 2nd edition, 2020; 3rd edition, 2023); an introductory to organizational behavior textbook, Organizational Behavior (1st Edition-Sage, 2017; 2nd Edition-Sage, 2019; 3rd Edition-Sage, 2023), and an Introduction to Business textbook (Introduction to Business, Sage, 2022). She is the author of The Unauthorized Guide to Doing Business the Alan Sugar Way (2010, Wiley-Capstone) and the lead author of How to Succeed as a Freelancer in Publishing (2010, How To Books). She lives in London.