Fields of study: Political economy; economics
Areas of expertise: Regional and industrial job creation; wealth building in free-market and transitional economies
Selected works: "Firm Size and the Dynamics in a Market Economy" (University of Michigan Business School, 1994); "Seeing the Trees Through the Forest: The Changing Michigan Economy, 1978-1988" (University of Michigan Business School, 1991)
Discovery: Tiny start-ups, including ones in lackluster industries, create good jobs that become better as companies flourish. Large start-ups may survive longer, but they don't breed the same long-term jobs that tiny start-ups do.
Jackson's data refuted the then-popular notion that industrial policies subsidizing a few down-and-out industries would raise Michigan's economy. He advocates progressive policies that stimulate venture creation and productivity throughout that state.
Jackson's efforts suggest that transitional countries can build their own market economies by encouraging entrepreneurship. "The number of companies in a particular industry and location is much more important to job creation than the overall industry employment," says Jackson.
That dynamic is striking in Poland and in other heavy-manufacturing-based economies that look much like Michigan's economy did years ago. That's why Jackson is developing a database of Polish organizations. He wants to measure the economic activities of start-ups there to determine how their contributions stack up against larger private, foreign, and state-owned industries.
The Renaissance Researcher
Paul D. Reynolds, 57, the Coleman Foundation chair holder in entrepreneurial studies, Marquette University's College of Business Administration, in Milwaukee. E-mail: 6333reynolds@vms.csd.mu.edu. Fax: 414-288-1660
Fields of study: Sociology; engineering
Areas of expertise: Job creation; regional business volatility
Selected works: "The Entrepreneurial Process: Preliminary Explorations in the United States" (Eurostat International Workshop, 1994); "Local and Regional Characteristics Affecting Small Business Formation: A Cross-National Comparison" (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1993)
Discovery: At any moment roughly 4% of the adult U.S. population is starting a company.
Reynolds has been piecing together a national sample of adults who are early-stage entrepreneurs. Results show that one in 25 people are bootstrapping companies, but it's still too early to tell how those go-getters influence gross domestic product. We do know that in at least five years, half of those start-ups will still be around. It's clear, too, that company building is particularly popular among the ingenious Yankees of the Northeast and the rugged individualists of the West. What's more, most entrepreneurs start their businesses on the streets where they live: nearly 90% live in a state for six years before they incorporate there.
The Historian
Donald L. Sexton, 62, director of curriculum at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation's Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, in Kansas City, Mo. E-mail: dsexton@emkf.mhs.compuserve.com. Fax: 816-751-6835
Fields of study: Strategic management; mathematics; physics
Areas of expertise: Problems of high-growth companies, turnarounds, and entrepreneurship
Selected works: Encyclopedia of Entrepreneurship (Prentice-Hall, 1982), with Calvin A. Kent and Karl H. Vesper; The State of the Art of Entrepreneurship (PWS-Kent, 1992), with John D. Kasarda
Discovery: Starting a company and growing one are entirely different tasks.
Sexton's compendiums, which are five-year snapshots of the entrepreneurial-research marketplace, are invaluable tools for anyone studying entrepreneurship. In 1982 Sexton and his coeditors divided the field into 14 niches to find the research gaps and suggest the next frontiers. Stack them up and you can see the waves of excitement, the growth in the number of niches, the progress of individual scholars, the perennially hot topics, and the passing fancies.
The books grew out of conferences on entrepreneurship that Sexton and Karl Vesper, of the University of Washington, first staged in 1980. It was the first time leading thinkers met to discuss how they could address the problems of growing companies. Sexton's traveling "State of the Art of Entrepreneurship" conference, held every five years, will be at the Kauffman Foundation in 1996.
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The Social Networker
Howard E. Aldrich, 51, the Kenan Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, N.C. E-mail: howard_aldrich@unc.edu. Fax: 919-962-7568
Fields of study: Sociology; business
Areas of expertise: Social networks; organizational evolution
Selected works: "Gender Gap, Gender Myth" (Global Conference on Entrepreneurship, INSEAD, 1994); "Friends and Strangers: Early Hiring Practices and Idiosyncratic Jobs" ( Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research 1994, Babson College.)
Discovery: Most entrepreneurs don't "go solo." Business formation is a cooperative, social endeavor.
Aldrich popularized the notion of social networking among growing companies. In the late 1970s he expected CEOs to turn to outside experts for business advice. Wrong. Nearly all rely on the people they've known for years. In the mid-1980s Aldrich figured women owners who needed quick banking or legal counsel would look to friends and family. Wrong again. They turned to perfect strangers and wound up paying below-market rates. Curiously, fewer than 5% of all owners, male or female, leaned on kin at all.
