Santa Clara University

Building Entrepreneurial Networks Through Effective Search: Reception & Discussion with Prof. Howard Aldrich, UNC -- Lucas 201

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Prof. Howard Aldrich (University of North Carolina) will join us for a discussion of his extensive research and experience with start-ups and small businesses. This presentation serves as the Winter quarter Managing Technology & Innovation Concentration event, as well as a final opportunity for SCU MBAs to meet with our international students completing their Certificate in Technology Entrepreneurship.

Prof. Aldrich is the:

        * Kenan Professor & Department Chair at University of North Carolina, Department of Sociology
        * Adjunct Professor of Management at Kenan-Flagler Business School
    * Visiting Faculty at AILUN

From a 2004 Press release:

Aldrich Honored for Pioneering Work in Study of Entrepreneurship

UNC Kenan-Flagler management professor Howard Aldrich was honored for his pioneering impact on the evolutionary approach to the study of entrepreneurship with a special volume of the Journal of Business Venturing, slated for July 2004 publication.

He is an expert on social conditions for new businesses, evolutionary theory, social networks and startup teams.

In his influential book, “Organizations and Environments,” Aldrich established a framework for evolutionary investigations of entrepreneurship. In both that book and his current book, “Organizations Evolving,” Aldrich has worked to systematically establish entrepreneurship as an evolutionary field. “Organizations Evolving” won the Academy of Management’s George Terry Award as the best management book published in 1998-99.

Aldrich, who also is Kenan Professor of Sociology and chair of the Department of Sociology, was tapped by the Swedish Foundation of Small Business Research in 2000 as the Entrepreneurship Researcher of the Year. The Organization and Management Division of the Academy of Management presented him with a Distinguished Career of Scholarly Achievement Award.

In 2002, a conference on “Evolutionary Approaches to Entrepreneurship” was held at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business in honor of Aldrich. Papers from the leading scholars of entrepreneurship and evolutionary theory at that conference are included in the special Journal of Business Venturing volume.
“Readers of this volume will no doubt see the imprint of Howard Aldrich on all of the articles. Not only can the development of the evolutionary approach to entrepreneurship be attributed to Howard, but also the specific arguments in each of the papers can be directly related to his work,” writes Scott Shane of Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management in the journal’s guest editorial.