Jason Mika on supporting Māori entrepreneurship

“I was raised initially in Te Puke, then in Rotorua, by our kuia Ani Mika and koro Pateriki Adams, with two older sisters, Tania and Tina, who kept me in line. We travelled around, living in Mount Maunganui, Whangamatā and Auckland – it was awesome.

“I attended Rotorua Boys’ High and originally aspired to be a master carver. I had a crack at it and found it pretty hard! So I scrapped that idea.

“My grandmother had remarried an Englishman, Wesley Scrivens, and he suggested I train to be a manager. I ended up at Waiāriki Polytechnic (now Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology) in Rotorua. Because my grades in maths weren’t great, the head of the Business School there suggested I try computer studies, and if that went well, I could go into business studies.

“I really enjoyed computer studies, so I thought I was ready for the big time. I decided to study property at the University of Auckland and become an investor like Sir Bob Jones. But that proved more challenging than I expected, so I went back to the Polytechnic and did a National Certificate in Business Studies. I found that management was my jam – I absolutely loved it.

“I loved the whole idea of how organisations function and the role of managers in getting things done. I really wanted to think about what that looked like for Māori organisations and Māori businesses.

“The CEO of the Polytechnic, Arapeta Tahana, wanted to do some serious research on Māori management in organisational settings. He hired me as his research assistant, and asked me to study what Māori management looked like – for example for the marae, for forestry gangs, for Māori sports groups – and what it should look like for the Polytechnic. I knew nothing about researching, but I gave it a crack and I fell in love with this idea of Māori management as a theory and as a practice. That became the interest that I have maintained throughout my working life.

“I finished my Bachelor of Management Studies at Waikato University in 1996. I was awarded a couple of scholarships, one from the Department of Inland Revenue, which required me to work for the IRD in Wellington for two years. I loved it there, but where I really wanted to work was Te Puni Kōkiri, because that ministry is all about Māori policy. When a job came up there, I applied for it and took off over there.

“When I started at Te Puni Kōkiri, I applied to do the Master of Public Policy at Victoria University of Wellington. Writing and studying policy was the best job ever.

“After I left Te Puni Kōkiri I became a consultant, doing very similar work to what I’d been doing as a policy analyst – advising and supporting Māori enterprises in what they needed to be successful. I observed organisations doing that kind of work with Māori companies, like Māori Women’s Development Incorporated (MWDI) and Māori business networks. I wanted to know how they worked and what we could do to support them. That became the basis of my PhD: what's involved in starting and running a successful Māori enterprise and what sort of government-funded enterprise assistance programmes are available in that process. I wanted to draw on my policy experience, my management consulting and my work with Māori enterprises.

“My wife Valencia and I moved the family to Palmerston North and I started full-time study as a PhD student. Whānau has been the main thing for me. I could not have started or finished a PhD without my wife’s support.

“My supervisors recommended I teach, so I started teaching a first-year introduction to management course with a very supportive professor, who showed me the ropes. For the first six weeks, I was a nervous wreck – but I was determined to make it work. It got easier and more enjoyable, and by the end of the semester I absolutely loved it. From that time on, I both taught and worked as a consultant while doing my PhD.

“Right now I'm teaching an MBA class on Te Ao Māori Business with Professor Chris Woods. Before this, I was at Waikato University teaching a first-year introduction to management course, which I enjoyed – I love teaching first-years.

“Once when I was passing through Cambridge, I stopped to get some food. A kid lined up behind me said, “Excuse me, Sir. I did your class.” He said my class had changed his whole view on management and he had switched his major to include strategic management and economics as a result. I was so pleased that he had got something out of it. That’s the sort of impact that teaching can have on young people and their choices – so my approach to teaching is: give them everything. Don't hold back, because you don't know what might trigger something in their imagination about what’s possible. What I get out of teaching is a total buzz.

“I’ve come to Māori entrepreneurship at the midpoint of its development. Now, we have a much bigger pool of younger, ambitious, capable researchers who are studying Indigenous entrepreneurship in different areas, which is awesome.

“Alongside PhD candidate Xiaoliang Niu, I recently contributed to a groundbreaking research project, Te Ahunga atu ki ngā Ōhanga Oranga Māori: Towards Māori Economies of Wellbeing, led by Professor Chellie Spiller of the University of Waikato. Chellie assembled a small group of senior Māori and non-Māori researchers to study the idea of Māori economies of well-being from multiple perspectives. I explored what an economy of well-being looks like for whānau or Māori enterprise.

“One of the impacts of this research is that those who support Māori enterprise can see whānau-scale enterprise as an area of economic potential for the country, and focus on what’s needed to enable them to be successful. The other key impact is that whānau enterprises can see that what they’re doing has value and meaning, and it can be distinctive. Iwi and government can see there is a pathway to enterprise development that is built on Indigenous values and principles, and is more sustainable and responsible.

“I’m also involved in a project on Indigenous trade called Tauhokohoko, which is studying what trade policy would look like if it was based on a Māori and Indigenous world view, values, aspirations and enterprise. My part in that is leading the team looking at how we enable Indigenous trade: what policies work for our Māori and Indigenous enterprises so that they're able to participate in international trade on terms that are consistent with their values and aspirations?

“My role as Associate Dean Māori entails supporting the Dean to provide for Māori student and staff success, and also non-Māori student and staff success when it comes to incorporating mātauranga Māori and te reo Māori into what we do.

“I also explore how we can transform the Business School so that it is contributing to the growth and development of the Māori economy – leveraging all of our intellectual capacity to support Indigenous economic development. A highlight of my role this year has been accompanying the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s Kurutao Entrepreneurial Leaders Expedition programme as a facilitator.

“I'm excited about all the PhD students that I'm supervising who are ambitious, both for themselves and for their whānau around Indigenous management and Indigenous business. I really want to support them in their development and retain as many as we can within New Zealand universities so that we have more Indigenous business academics. I'm doing everything I can to recruit more and to support those who are already studying to finish – and then to stay put and teach.”