Howard E. Aldrich Explained

Howard E. Aldrich (born 1943) is an American sociologist who is Kenan Professor of Sociology and Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[1] [2]

He is also a Faculty Research Associate at the Department of Strategy & Entrepreneurship at the Duke University Fuqua School of Business.[3] He is a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge University and Faculty Fellow of the Center for Study of Economy and Society at Cornell University.[4] Aldrich's main research interests are entrepreneurship, team formation, evolutionary theory, economic sociology and inequality, and gender issues in entrepreneurship.[5] [6]

Aldrich is best known for his work in applying an evolutionary perspective to organizational emergence and change. One of his seminal works is the 1999 book Organizations Evolving, which won the Academy of Management George Terry Award[7] and was the co-winner of the Max Weber Award[8] from the American Sociological Association's Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work.

Early career

Aldrich received his BA in sociology from Bowling Green University in 1965 and went on to pursue his PhD at the University of Michigan which he received in 1969.[9]

In 1966, he directed a survey project through the Institute of Social Research, which explored ethnic succession in the small business populations of high-crime areas of Boston, Washington, D.C., and Chicago.[10] Aldrich carried out subsequent waves of the study in 1968 and presented his dissertation, titled Organizations in a Hostile Environment for his 1969 PhD.[11] This study led to follow-up studies in 1970 and 1972, in a collaboration with Albert J. Reiss Jr.

Following the completion of his dissertation in 1969, Aldrich accepted an assistant professorship at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. There he began to further develop his evolutionary perspectives on organizational theory, and wrote a number of papers that explored context as a driver for organizational change, including a paper titled "Organizational Boundaries and Inter-Organizational Conflict", and eventually formed the basis for his 1979 book, Organizations and Environments. Following up on his earlier studies in the US, in 1975, Aldrich also undertook comparative research on ethnic business succession in the UK. Several other waves in subsequent years revealed similar evidence of business populations changing in response to population-level residential changes. These studies also ultimately formed the basis of his 1990 book Ethnic Entrepreneurs, co-authored with Roger Waldinger and Robin Ward.

Evolutionary perspective on entrepreneurship

Aldrich's most influential works have presented, developed, and refined an evolutionary approach to organizational behavior and entrepreneurship. At the heart of this approach is the assumption that evolutionary processes are driven by entrepreneurs and organizations’ struggles to obtain scarce resources, both social and physical.[12]

Aldrich's perspective was developed throughout the 1970s, at a time when new approaches to organizational analysis were blossoming around the world. It was during the 1980s and 1990s that Aldrich's interest in entrepreneurship materialized and he wrote several papers on the subject.

Career at the University of North Carolina

Aldrich moved from Cornell University to the Department of Sociology at the University North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1982. He was the first chair of the revamped Curriculum in Industrial Relations, later renamed the Management and Society (M&S) Curriculum within the sociology department. He specialised in Population Ecology, an innovative view of how businesses environmentally and cultural adapted to meet the needs if local and immigrant populations. He chaired the M&S program until 2003, when he became department chair of sociology, serving until 2014.[13] Under his direction, the department’s journal, Social Forces, switched from being self-published to becoming one of the major social science journals published by Oxford University Press.

Honors and awards

Selected books

Selected articles

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Plump . Wendy . Entrepreneurship could benefit from cultural studies, conference finds . Princeton University . 16 August 2017.
  2. Web site: Sax . David . It’s Time to Reclaim the Meaning of the Word ‘Entrepreneur’ . bloomberg.com . Bloomberg . 26 June 2020.
  3. Web site: Howard Aldrich Biography . orcid.org.
  4. Web site: Howard Aldrich Curriculum vitae . University of North Carolina . 18 June 2018.
  5. Web site: Williams . Breon . Howard Aldrich Wins Babson Entrepreneurship Lifetime Achievement Award . sociology.unc.edu . University of North Carolina . 20 October 2014.
  6. Web site: Reed . Carol . Why Women Often Don’t Lead The Companies They’ve Founded . fastcompany.com . 18 December 2014.
  7. Web site: Historical Award Winners. aom.org. 2015-10-19.
  8. Web site: American Sociological Association: Organizations, Occupations and Work Awards History. www.asanet.org. 2015-10-19.
  9. Web site: Howard Aldrich . UNC Chapel Hill Department of Sociology.
  10. Book: Reports and Documents, Volume 5 . APPENDIX B - A 1968 Follow-up Study of Crime and Insurance Problems of Businesses Surveyed in 1966 in Three Cities - Summary and conclusions. . United States Congress . 1969 . 145 .
  11. Landström . Hans . Five decades of evolutionary reasoning in entrepreneurship research – an interview with Professor Howard Aldrich for the journal Revue de l'Entrepreneuriat . Revue de l'Entrepreneuriat . 2012 . 11 . 1 . 73-83 . 10.3917/entre.111.0073 . free .
  12. Web site: Organizations Evolving SAGE Publications Inc. us.sagepub.com. 2015-10-19.
  13. Web site: Howard Aldrich (2003-2014) . UNC Chapel Hill Department of Sociology.

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