Research: Location Intelligence, Business Strategy, and Entrepreneurship

My curriculum vitae, my peer-reviewed publication record, my Google Scholar profile, my Microsoft Academic page, my conference presentation record, and my UNT faculty profile reflect my business geography research interests. The quality of my scholarship has been recognized by the Business Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers, who presented me with their Distinguished Scholar Award in 2018.

​Beyond attention to definition of the emerging location intelligence field, my research falls in two broad categories:

1. Metropolitan Corporate Development and Entrepreneurship

• Research on the headquarters locations of the largest firms and the strategic positioning of these elite corporate activities
• The evolving geography of highly-entrepreneurial, high-growth businesses across North America, and related insights into the relationship between rapid firm growth and headquarters location development
• The track record of what happens to high-growth firms in the years following their peak growth
• The evolving location and distribution of major subsidiary headquarters
• The geography of corporate boards of directors, their impacts on business fortunes, how director networks and clusters have changed over time, and geographic analysis of directors' personal backgrounds with respect to business outcomes
• Study of the geography of corporate infrastructure and material flows

2. Markets, Services, and Urban and Regional Change

• The development strategies followed by large, national chain retailers, focusing on store and distribution center location issues
• The geography of retail activity as it relates to urban change
• The location of grocery retailing and other food providers relative to urban markets and community needs
• The relationship between light rail development and retail business location decisions
• Analysis of the mix and type of businesses that choose to locate in mixed-use, New Urban Developments​​

Other Key Elements of My Research Program

My external support: Below is a summary of my funded requests for external funding and donor support.

• 2018. Maptitude Software for UNT Geography GIS Labs. Granted Software Request to Caliper Corporation, Newton, Massachusetts ($34,750: 50 Maptitude 2018 GIS software licenses to equip UNT Geography computer labs).
• 2017. Maptitude Software for UNT Geography GIS Labs. Granted Software Request to Caliper Corporation, Newton, Massachusetts ($34,750: 50 Maptitude 2017 GIS software licenses to equip UNT Geography computer labs).
• 2016. Maptitude Software for UNT Geography GIS Labs. Granted Software Request to Caliper Corporation, Newton, Massachusetts ($34,750: 50 Maptitude 2016 GIS software licenses to equip UNT Geography computer labs).
• 2014. Defining the Record of Fast-Growing Firms as Members of Regional Business Communities. Funded Proposal to the Metropolitan Entrepreneurship Research Program, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Kansas City, Missouri ($16,600).
• 2010. Alteryx Software Grant. Granted Software Request to Alteryx LLC, Irvine, California ($247,481: 50 Alteryx data management software academic licenses to equip UNT Geography computer labs).
• 2010. Business Growth, Business Decline, and Industry Development. Funded Proposal to the Canadian Embassy Research Grants Program (Foreign Affairs Canada), Washington, DC ($6,990).
• 2008. Firm Decline, Expansion, and Economic Evolution. Funded Proposal to the Canadian Embassy Research Grants Program (Foreign Affairs Canada), Washington, DC ($7,918).
• 2006. Rapid Firm Growth and Economic Evolution. Funded Proposal to the Canadian Embassy Research Grants Program (Foreign Affairs Canada), Washington, DC ($7,000).

Conference presentations: I regularly present at a number of prominent conferences. Here is an archive of selected conference presentations from the last few years.

Research collaborations: I am collaborating on investigations and curriculum development initiatives with an international network of faculty and industry experts who share my broad interests in geography, businesses, and cities.

• One emerging collaboration I am excited to participate in is with colleagues in the UNT College of Merchandising, Hospitality, and Tourism (CMHT), where I am an affiliated Research Faculty Member with CMHT's Global Digital Retailing Research Center. Our interests focus, in part, on the intersection of location analytics and merchandising.
• I am also pleased to be developing research ideas in partnership with UNT's Economics Research Group, where I am an affiliated researcher and GEAR collaborator.

I am interested in discussing further research opportunities with public and private sector researchers.  I welcome inquiries from students who wish to engage in graduate studies related to any of my study fields; I also welcome expressions of collaboration interest from business geography academics and practitioners.

Interviews and other media: I've had the pleasure of having a few of my interview/lecture opportunities recorded over the years.

• Here is a 2015 interview I did with Linda Peters for inclusion in Esri's Location Advantage MOOC. The interview focuses on the reasons why businesses should include geography in their planning, and why students should consider business geography as a career. Here is a transcript of the interview.
• I appeared in a 2012 news report on TSTV, a Shandong Province, China television channel. In the report, TSTV covered a retail geography talk I gave at the University of Jinan. The report is in Chinese, but it includes a few comments from me in English.
• Here is a 2009 podcast I did with the Canadian Embassy in Washington DC, where I discuss some of my research into the geography of rapidly-growing businesses in Canada.

Here is a Google Scholar graph tracking my research publication citations per year, current as of December 2018:

Note: 2005 marked the beginning of my tenure-track employment record.

Questions? Contact me here

© Murray D. Rice. All rights reserved.