James Bort
BIO
Academic Degrees
PhD, Business Administration (Entrepreneurship), Syracuse University
MBA, Syracuse University
BS, Computer & Information Science, SUNY Polytechnic
Biography
James Bort is an Assistant Professor in the Management & Entrepreneurship department at DePaul University's Driehaus College of Business and serves as Action Editor at Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. His research asks who builds start-ups, who works in them, and what happens to people when a mission becomes all-consuming.
Bort's work on the start-up workforce reframes the people who join early-stage ventures as co-constructors of the firm rather than as simple labor inputs. His theory of the start-up workforce appeared in the Academy of Management Review, and related work in the Strategic Management Journal examines how firm growth shapes the job satisfaction of start-up employees. He is currently co-editing a special issue of Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice on "The Startup Workforce."
Bort’s newest project turns attention to the more extreme side of mission-driven ventures. In a conceptualization of the cultic start-up (Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 2026), he shows how charismatic founders, insulated power structures, unquestionable missions, and all-encompassing work can meet employees who are especially susceptible to such environments, with implications for startup performance and employee outcomes.
Earlier work appears in the Journal of Business Venturing, Small Business Economics, Journal of Business Research, and Industrial and Corporate Change, and has earned best paper recognitions from the Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference, the Academy of Management Entrepreneurship Division, and the Annual Social Entrepreneurship Conference.
Before academia, Bort worked as a software engineer, IT manager, and serial entrepreneur across technology, hospitality, and music, including founding an independent record label; those experiences anchor his teaching in entrepreneurship at the MBA and undergraduate levels. He holds a PhD in Business Administration (Entrepreneurship) and an MBA from Syracuse University and a BS in Computer & Information Science from SUNY Polytechnic.