Howard E. Aldrich received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and is Kenan Professor of Sociology, Adjunct Professor of Business at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Faculty Research Associate at the Department of Strategy & Entrepreneurship, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, and Fellow, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University.
His main research interests are entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial team formation, gender and entrepreneurship, and evolutionary theory.
His 1979 book, Organizations and Environments, was reprinted in 2007 by Stanford University Press in its Business Classics series. His book, Organizations Evolving (Sage, 1999), won the George Terry Award from the Academy of Management and was co-winner of the Max Weber Award from the OOW section of the American Sociological Association. In 2000, he won the Swedish Foundation on Small Business Award for his research on entrepreneurship. In 2002, he won the Sitterson Award for Excellence in Freshman Teaching at UNC-CH. His latest book, An Evolutionary Approach to Entrepreneurship: Selected Essays, was published by Edward Elgar in 2012. To see all of his publications, go to the “Publications” section of this site.
Howard E. Aldrich ORCID
Publications and talks June 2024
The History Project: The History Project
Download many of his publications from Research Gate.
Visit Howard Aldrich’s Google Scholar Profile page.
Visit Howard Aldrich’s Amazon author’s page.
Read about Howard Aldrich in French, via Bernard Forgues’ exposition
The influence of Howard Aldrich in entrepreneurship research – ENTRE1_PR_0025, a review article in Dans Revue De L’Entrepreneuriat [Review of Entrepreneurship] by Solomon Akele Abebe & Hans Landstrom, 2022
Read Howard Aldrich’s biographical essay, Fifty Years in the Making: My Career as a Scholar of Organizations and Entrepreneurship
Visit Howard Aldrich’s Wikipedia page.
Visit Howard Aldrich’s Entrepreneurship Information Exchange (EIX) page.
Dear Prof. Akdrich,
I am a Phd student in a business school.
I am searching for a questionnaire to measure social capital, cultural capital and risk taking among business’ entrepreneurs in a host society.
I hope you can assist me with the relevant citation / sourcing.
Thank you very much,
Erez
The best place to look for validated measures of reliably measured entrepreneurship concepts is in the questionnaires and codebooks of the Panel Study for Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED), which you can find at the University of Michigan Institute for Social and Political Research. An additional resource that also provides great questions is the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) website. I would go to these websites because you want to look for measures that are been widely used and widely replicated.
Howard: OK, I’ve now checked out your web page – some great resources here. I’m looking forward to your talk here at Oxford tomorrow.
Hello Prof. Howard,
I am a PhD student. I have been searching for theories which have been used to explain entrepreneurship but failed to get generic ones. Please help.
Looking forward to your response
Thanks
You should read my book, Organizations Evolving, published in 2006. It will give you some ideas.
Dear Prof. Aldrich,
I am a PhD student of entrepreneurship in business school and hold a B.A degree in history. I was aspired by your 1994 AMR article with a topic of legitimacy, which encouraged me to read a range of books and articles in some associated topics. Recently, I find studying entrepreneurship from sociological perspectives (such as organization theory) is pretty interesting. I wonder, if you want to enroll any visiting PhD students trained in business school.
Thank you very much!
Alexis
Alexis, please send me an email to my personal email address, which you can find on the UNC Sociology Web site: https://sociology.unc.edu/
Dear Mr. Aldrich,
I asked about your publication, Guidepost: What Sustains A Belief in Success Among the Unsuccessful? https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/amd.2019.0139?journalCode=amd, and you offered to send me a copy. Thank you!
Pia aka cecalli_helper
Read your paper on Success. Very timely as I’m working with authors of a science fiction novel, doing the promotions, trying to engage people through social media platforms. Your point about ‘receiving reinforcement on an unpredictable schedule’ is valid from my experience… as a team we keep each other energized and enthusiastic every now and then. Knowing that marketing a book is a tough job with a lot of competition (seems like everybody wants to be published!). I find it important to sustain belief in success through support systems like intermittent reinforcement. Thank you for sharing your study.
thanks for your validating comments. i appreciate your taking the time to share your example.
howard
I have watched your talk on how to write from Chicago 2018.
Great pieces of advice. I loved free write and interpretive notes. A friend from history introduced it to me.
I hope an opportunity arises to take a picture with you. I take a lot of inspiration from your work.
I was surprised most people had not read even dwarfs started small. I have read it like 10x.
Best and stay safe in these times.
Dear Mr. Aldrich,
How do you see the sociocultural perspectives that defend that the Darwinian evolution of organizations is not appropriate to understand the evolution of organizations and advocate a Spencerian evolution to explain the evolution of organizations?
André Lacera, Brazil.
I’m not sure I understand your question. I have never used Spencer in my work & would not do so, as we have 21st century evolutionary theorists who do a better job of explaining using evolutionary theory in the social sciences. E.g., Geoffrey Hodgson, David Sloan Wilson, etc.