Research Projects of Howard Aldrich
Social
Networks and Business Performance.
With Amy B. Davis, Amanda Brickman Elam, Pat Ray Reese, Linda Renzulli, and other doctoral students, I am analyzing data collected from a two-wave panel study of 431 small and medium-sized firms in the Research Triangle Area. The data were collected in 1990-92. We are studying the effect of personal network characteristics and networking strategies on the survival and performance of the firms. The intersection of family and business activities is a major focus on the project. This research was profiled in the Wall Street Journal in November, 1995. See P91, P100 and P102. In the Working Paper series, see WP91, 93, 99, 103, 104, 111, 116, 128, and 132.
Nascent Entrepreneurs and Social Networks
With Nancy Carter, I am studying the gender and relational composition of startup teams, as well as the people helping them (“alters”), using data from the Entrepreneurship Research Consortium. The ERC study uses interview data from 1262 respondents, from 3 waves of interviewing, with one subsample of nascent entrepreneurs and another from a comparison group of people who were asked about their work careers. For more information about the ERC, go to the University of Michigan ISR web site.
Human Resource Management in New Ventures.
With Ted Baker, assistant professor in the Business School, University of Wisconsin, Madison: I have studied the human resource practices of newly founded firms in the Research Triangle Area. Firms from two industries were studied: environmental assessment and engineering, and computer training and education. Papers have been presented at several professional meetings and one book chapter has been published. See P94 and P98.
Ted Baker did his PhD dissertation with a new sample of about 100 high-technology ventures in North Carolina, most in the Research Triangle Area. He is continuing this research through his own projects at the University of Wisconsin. See WP 130 and WP 134.
Cross-national study of gender and family business.
Working with Nancy Langton, at the College of Commerce and Administration, University of British Columbia, and Jennifer Cliff, assistant professor at the University of Alberta -- we are studying how gender and family ownership affect the human resource management practices of several hundred business owners in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia (the greater Vancouver area). We have collected survey information from approximately 85 women owners and 130 men owners. See WP120, WP121, and WP122.
For more information about the UBC project, click here.
For a paper on inter-generational transmission of entrepreneurial capital, with Linda Renzulli, see P105, published in Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 1998.
A paper on the relative neglect of women business owners by the academic and mass media was presented at the 1996 Academy of Management meeting. My co-author was Nina Liou, a researcher at RTI. See WP119. Ted Baker joined the project in 1997, and a paper was published in Entrepreneurship and Regional Development in 1997. See P104.
Commercialization of the World Wide Web.
With Courtney Shelton Hunt, Northern Illinois University, I studied the emergence of the WWW as a medium for commercial activities. We focused on the startup firms that have emerged to take advantage of the Webs unique potential. The first report from this project was presented at the Academy of Management meetings in August, 1996. See WP118. A paper from the project appeared in Research in Organzational Behavior, 1998. See P106.
In 1999-2000, Annetta Fortune & I began a study of the Application Service Provider Industry, focusing on the accounting industry. We presented a paper on this project at the 2000 Academy of Management meetings in Toronto. See WP131.
Cross National Study of Research and Development Consortia.
With collaborators in Kyoto, Japan (Toshihiro Sasaki) and San Jose, California (Michele Bolton), in the mid-1990s I studied the governance structures of R&D consortia in the United States, Japan, and Korea. The study used data from several sources: archival data on all the consortia founded in each country since the passage of enabling legislation; and, identically worded surveys, translated into each national language, administered to the managers of a sample of consortia. Also, data from archival sources on the member firms in consortia in Japan, Korea, and the United States. (Data collection for the member firms was funded by a grant from San Jose State University's School of Business Administration.) One journal article and two book chapters have been published. See the Publications List for ordering information:P85, P87, and P103.