John M. Mueller

PhD student, University of Louisville

Biography

John M. Mueller

John M. Mueller is a researcher and a PhD student at the University of Louisville.  His research focuses on how new, young, and small firms handle their financial and accounting activities.

Prior to starting his PhD, he started and ran several businesses over a 10 year period in the software industry.

Before entering the entrepreneurial ranks, he worked at the executive level as well as in the operational rankings, including programming and testing software applications.  His work experiences have allowed him to live and work in the United States, Europe, Middle East, and Africa, including serving as a United States representative to South African companies in the capacity of advisor and consultant on business linkages, partnering and financing for small and medium businesses.

John holds an MBA from the University of Illinois and a BBA in Management Information Sciences from Southern Methodist University.

University of Louisville

The University of Louisville (also known as U of L) is a public university in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of the first universities chartered west of the Allegheny Mountains. U of L enrolls students from 118 of 120 Kentucky counties,   all 50 U.S. states, and 116 countries around the world.

Presentation

Advancing research through user generated content

Higher education, Conference Day #1, Wednesday May 5th, 4.00 pm - 5.00 pm

The Kauffman Firm Survey (KFS) is a panel study of 4,928 businesses founded in 2004 and tracked over their early years of operation. The survey focuses on the nature of new business formation activity; characteristics of the strategy, offerings, and employment patterns of new businesses; the nature of the financial and organizational arrangements of these businesses; and the characteristics of their founders.  The data contained within the KFS dataset is primarily used by over a 1,000 scholars and researchers around the world.

The Kauffman foundation needed a way to create a web-based mechanism to improve the usability of the KFS data and at the same time use the platform to engage and promote a more active researcher community.  The initial method of accessing information for each variable in the data set was static and offline. It was cumbersome to use, and driven by a single source.  This slowed the progress in the research that used the KFS data.  To bring together the research community, a system was designed that combined wiki, discussion forum, and content management tools to build a user-generated environment for researchers.  Based around the 4,000+ data variables, users are able to add content for each variable based upon their experiences as well as communicate with one another about how to better use variables in their research.

See slides online