Change and Innovation,

Design, Strategic Management, and International Education

Dr. Edgell's research on change and innovation is featured on NPR's Academic Minute

Dr. Edgell discusses empirical evidence that supports the positive influence of design culture on entrepreneurial self-efficacy

Learn more about InnovationChallenge New York (ICNY)

InnovationChallenge New York and DesignChallenge are featured in SUNY Poly's Interface articles

Dr. Edgell's scholarly research on Academia.edu and SSRN

Dr. Edgell is featured in two Kogod Now articles, one on creativity and the other on entrepreneurship

Academic and Innovation Professional

Through his years of professional and scholarly work, Dr. Edgell has forged a unique identity from diverse educational experiences and an unconventional combination of practice activities. He holds degrees in Architecture, international business, and multicultural management (with a behavioral economics focus). His varied professional contributions include designing habitats, creating media and brands, being an entrepreneur, developing action research, educating future change agents, and performing scholarly research on creativity, innovation, and sustainability.

Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of Technology Management at the State University of New York, Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Poly) where is also leads the AACSB continuous improvement review and assurance of learning efforts. In addition, he is a Visiting Professor at the Swiss Business School in Zurich and has delivered research papers and lectures at Stanford University’s Law School, the University of California San Francisco’s School of Dentistry, the California College of the Arts, and the University of St. Gallen.

Previously, he was an Assistant Professor of Strategic Management at American University’s Kogod School of Business in Washington DC where he was named Outstanding Faculty. Also, he has taught at San Francisco State University’s College of Business. As a consultant, Dr. Edgell has provided strategic direction, organizational design, creativity and management training, and relationship development solutions for diverse organizations including socially responsible businesses, startups, nonprofits, and universities. During his stay in Switzerland, he served as Executive Director of the MBA in Media and Communication at the University of St. Gallen. Prior to St. Gallen, he served as Vice President of Club Marketing at Carclub.com. While at Bertelsmann, he held various executive positions. He co-established Doubleday Interactive, had P&L responsibility for annual revenues of over $200 million at Doubleday Direct's entertainment clubs, and was in charge of strategic planning at Book Group North America.

Dr. Edgell’s scholarship agenda expands upon his deep research commitment to diversity, multiculturalism, governance, and social justice. In his PhD dissertation, he empirically tested how various forms of actor heterogeneity and dissonance positively influence organizational creativity outcomes, especially in media settings. He collaborates with members of the Program in Law, Science & Technology at Stanford Law School and has advised Stanford University’s SIPX project. During Fall 2013 at SUNYIT, he was the recipient of a visiting scholar grant for James Moustafellos from Temple University (Visiting Scholar Seminar Series program; funds provided by the office of Sponsored Research SUNYIT.) During this visit, he co-delivered the lecture, "Harnessing collective knowledge and experience for idea generation and innovative solutions".

In January of 2015 his co-authored paper, "Explicating media, governance, and capitalism: A critical comparative analysis of historical cases", was accepted for publication in Corporate Board: Role, Duties and Composition. Other recent publications include his interdisciplinary paper, “A theory of innovation: Benefit, harm, and legal regimes”, published in the scholarly journal, Law, Innovation and Technology and "Developing nations and sustainable entrepreneurial policy: Growing into novelty, growing out of poverty" published in the Journal of Applied Business Research. His paper, "A sociotechnological theory of discursive change and entrepreneurial capacity: Novelty and networks" was accepted for a TIM divisional paper presentation at the Academy of Management (AOM) 2014 Annual Meeting. Currently, he is collaborating with a colleague from Temple University to complete an ethnographic study of innovation and sustainability artifacts produced by Architects and an empirical pilot study of the effects of design immersion, network engagement, and actor network theory on entrepreneurial confidence and mental rotations ability.

During 2014, he launched a community-based action research project that brings annual InnovationChallenges (ICNY) to the Mohawk Valley region. In June of 2014, he organized and conducted an InnovationChallenge planning conference with representatives from area schools including Cornell University. Previously, his research paper on artificial intelligence, "A network view of human ingestion and health: Instrumental artificial intelligence", was presented at AAAI 2011 and published in the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) 2011 Conference Proceedings. This paper was selected for additional distribution in the e-journals, Human Cognition in Evolution & Development and Cognition in Mathematics, Science, & Technology. Also, his paper on leading Highly Creative Organizations (HCOs) was distributed by the e-journal, Entrepreneurship Educator: Courses, Cases & Teaching. Prior to his PhD, he authored the seminar companion book, Profitable marketing and branding in the digital economy.

Dr. Edgell received his PhD in international multicultural management (magna cum laude) from the University of St. Gallen (AACSB accredited) in Switzerland. He holds an MBA from Columbia University Business School in the City of New York and a Bachelor of Architecture (5 year degree, cum laude) from Kent State University, College of Architecture and Environmental Design. Through Columbia's Chazen Institute of International Business, he studied at Erasmus University, Rotterdam School of Management in The Netherlands. He is a registered Architect and has studied at Harvard University, Graduate School of Design.