Traveling, Teaching, and Creating Global Leaders

PROVO, Utah – Sep 12, 2018 – Shad Morris and his family love to camp, backpack, mountain bike, and participate in triathlons. They also love to travel. Maybe they all caught the travel bug, or maybe they just conveniently grew to love it as Morris’ career has taken him to over sixty countries. 

As an associate professor of organizational behavior and human resources, Morris specializes in international business. He is constantly looking for new ideas to teach to students and believes sharing leads to innovation.

“I get to go all over the world, conduct research, and share it with organizations,” Morris says. “Then I come back into the classroom and express what I’ve learned to my students.”

Morris wants his students to understand international business principles because he believes that globally minded business professionals are more successful, not only in their careers but also in their lives in general. Original cases, videos, and games supplement his lectures to provide experiential learning opportunities for his students, help bring a more global mindset to BYU Marriott, and improve his teaching methods. Students make the connection from theories they learn in his classes to real-world scenarios to positively influence the world around them.

“Success in a domestic market doesn’t mean you will be successful in a global market,” Morris says. “However, if you can be successful in a global market, you can be successful in a domestic market.”

Morris researches how to overcome international, cultural, and geographical barriers to get organizations to collaborate and build off of each other’s knowledge. This research shows that organizations can innovate more if they copy each other. Researching development to help emerging markets grow is Morris’ passion.

As part of his research, Morris took a developmental leave in 2016 and moved his family to China for six months where he was a visiting professor at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai.

“Having international experiences has been transformative for my kids, and I know similar experiences will do the same for my students as well,” Morris says. “If anyone has the chance for a developmental leave, they should jump at the chance.”

Before he became a professor, Morris worked for the World Bank. He traveled the world conducting research, consulting, and assisting global organizations to help their people. After leaving the World Bank, Morris was on the faculty at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, Samsung’s SKK Graduate School of Business in Korea, and The Ohio State University before landing his current position at BYU Marriott. Morris is grateful for the opportunity to contribute to BYU’s mission.

“Students here are engaging, bright, and hungry to learn and do what’s right,” Morris says. “A lot of BYU Marriott students have also served missions, so they’re extremely cause driven. They’ve lived in places all over the world, they are able to relate to people from different cultures, they’ve seen a broad range of problems, and they want to help. They are here to learn how to create a better society.”