[Lauren Shelburne | Banner] Dr. Andrew Harrity, business entrepreneurship program director and professor of entrepreneurship, explains his findings and how it influenced his writing.
Dr. Andrew Herrity, entrepreneurship program director and professor of entrepreneurship and business, was awarded best paper from the Christian Business Academy Review for his work on students’ values.
Herrity studied 300 senior students, examining their core values and the reasons behind their values.
Herrity found truthfulness was the top value for a majority of students, however, this value was not founded in faith.
Herrity found honesty is valued practically, when comparing his findings with Dr. Christian Smith’s, a sociologist and author.
“The language of faith is not the dominant thing for explaining how their lives work,” Herrity said. “Even for young adult Christians, it’s more the language of ‘this is practical, this is useful, this works in my life.’ Looking over three years of results that I got, I found it was very consistent with what he was saying.”
Herrity sees the struggles that come with students who carry their high standard of truthfulness into their careers.
“There’s a lot of people who will lie to you and not blink an eye, so how do you deal with this?” Herrity said. “I’m still exploring these ideas and hope to turn it into a book about workplace struggles.”
Mike Bishop, senior director of the CBU Career Center, has written about business undergraduate student values with Herrity in the past. “His experience in banking prior to coming to CBU coupled with his many years of experience in the classroom allows him to communicate with students in a way that is relevant and practical to the challenges that are presented in today’s workplace,” Bishop said.
“I’m coming at this as a researcher but as a researcher who wants to understand to better serve my students,” Herrity said about his research.
