Sandhya Balasubramanian

Assistant Dean, WPI Business School | Adjunct Faculty - Entrepreneurship |

Director - WPI Small Business Digitization Initiative

Strategic Leadership: As Assistant Dean of Business Programs, Sandhya spearheads efforts aimed at strengthening all aspects of the WPI Business School Student life cycle, accreditation and assessment. A future focused and passionate educational advocate, Sandhya excels in opportunity recognition, proactive program development and strategic engagements to drive scalable and sustainable growth. Sandhya leads the WBS Programs Team that advises students on curricular selection and academic progression. The Programs team develops long-term advising relationships with students and counsel’s learners on academic, administrative, professional, and disciplinary issues. Furthermore, the Programs team provides instructional support for all WBS faculty, including classroom scheduling and active participation on WBS curriculum committees.

As Director of WPI’s Small Business Digitization Initiative (SBDI), Sandhya leads a community-engaged program that connects WPI students and faculty with small businesses and nonprofits to address real-world digital transformation needs—from websites and e-commerce to digital marketing, automation, and technology strategy. She has also served as Principal Investigator on an ARPA funded grant that provided digitization services tailored for small businesses and non-profits in the City of Worcester and Central MA.. SBDI creates a dual impact: expanding digital capacity for local organizations while giving WPI students substantive, client-facing consulting experience. Learn more

Research Interests: Sandhya's research centers on entrepreneurial orientation, entrepreneurial leadership, and entrepreneurial team performance, with a parallel focus on student entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial universities. Her work extends into industry emergence, using EdTech as a lens to examine how new sectors form, attract capital, and scale. She also studies innovation in banking and finance, and is expanding this line of work into business model innovation, ESG, and entrepreneurial finance. Sandhya has published in the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal and Frontiers of Entrepreneurship, presented at national and regional conferences, and serves on the editorial boards of the South Asian Journal of Business Studies and The AMC Indian Journal of Entrepreneurship.

Teaching Expertise: Sandhya specializes in teaching, guiding and mentoring early stage entrepreneurs on new venture creation and managing nascent venture teams. A Certified Entrepreneurial Mindset Practitioner®, Sandhya uniquely integrates her years of entrepreneurial leadership experience and research expertise to the business classroom. Working across a variety of settings both in the US and India, she has taught a range of topics. Currently, she specializes in teaching courses on leading entrepreneurial teams, new venture creation, business plan development, competitor research and research methods.

Courses Taught at WPI Include:

Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship, ETR 1100

WPI Means Business/Introduction to Business Decision Making

Frontiers Summer Program on Entrepreneurship

Assistant Dean, WPI Business School | Adjunct Faculty - Entrepreneurship |

Director - WPI Small Business Digitization Initiative

Courses Taught at WPI Include:

Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship, ETR 1100

WPI Means Business/Introduction to Business Decision Making

Frontiers Summer Program on Entrepreneurship

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 4: Quality Education

SDG 4: Quality Education - Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

SDG 5: Gender Equality

SDG 5: Gender Equality - Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth - Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure

SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure - Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure Goal

SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals

SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals - Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

Scholarly Work

Balasubramanian, S, Yang, Y, Tello, S. (2020). Does University entrepreneurial orientation matter? Evidence from university performance. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal. 2020;1-22. https://doi.org/10.1002/sej.1341

Balasubramanian, S, Wales, J. W, White, J.V., Gupta, V. K.,(2020) "Entrepreneurial Orientation". In obo in Management. https://doi.org/10.1093/OBO/9780199846740-0193

Albashrawi, M. A., Turner, L., & Balasubramanian, S. (2020). Adoption of mobile ERP in educational environment: computer self-efficacy and system security. International Journal of Enterprise Information Systems (IJEIS), 16(4), 184-200.

Balasubramanian, S., & Yang, Y (2019). Team Congruence on Entrepreneurial Orientation: Can Alignment Enhance Team Performance? (Interactive Paper). Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research, Vol (39)

Balasubramanian, S., & Yang, Y (2015). Impact of Entrepreneurial Orientation on University Performance (SUMMARY). Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research, 35(13), 9.

Balasubramanian, S., [Review of Book, The Concept of Entrepreneurial Orientation: Foundations and Trends® in Entrepreneurship (2015), Volume 11, No. 2, 55–137 by Vishal Gupta and Alka Gupta], Organization Management Journal, 12(4), 249-250, Dec. 2015.