Special lecture on entrepreneurship and the inequality of opportunity

A lecture by Rutgers Business School Professor Ted Baker, who holds the George F. Farris Chair in Entrepreneurship, will explore how entrepreneurs persevere in resource-constrained environments and how lessons drawn from their resourcefulness can help promote small business development.

Baker, who was named to fill the endowed chair in December, will also explain the role the Rutgers Advanced Institute for the Study of Entrepreneurship and Development will play in helping to empower entrepreneurs.

The lecture takes place Wednesday, Oct. 7, at 2:30 p.m. in Rutgers Business School’s Bove Auditorium, One Washington Park, Newark. A reception in the third-floor lounge will follow the lecture. All are welcome to attend. RSVP by calling 973-353-2582 or emailing runevent@andromeda.rutgers.edu.

During the talk, "Entrepreneurship and Inequality of Opportunity," Baker will discuss how some of the same issues that discourage social mobility in the U.S. – poor social networks and a lack of access to education, among them – are limiting entrepreneurship.

"Even entrepreneurship as a path to social mobility is being blocked," he said.

Baker was hired from North Carolina State University’s Poole College of Management where he was the founding executive director of The Entrepreneurship Collaborative. The collaborative, known informally as TEC, is a center of research and education as well as a service provider to local entrepreneurs.

The Rutgers Advanced Institute for the Study of Entrepreneurship and Development will support and bring together several existing entrepreneurship initiatives at Rutgers, including the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development. While it will build on the foundation of Baker’s previous efforts, it will also have a much broader scope, generating research and applying it to help resource-constrained area entrepreneurs overcome obstacles and build sustainable businesses.

All are welcome to attend Professor Baker’s lecture. RSVP by calling 973-353-2582 or emailing runevent@andromeda.rutgers.edu.

Baker’s research has focused on identifying the skills and behaviors that allow entrepreneurs to overcome the sort of resource constraints that are common to start-up endeavors. His lecture will draw on his research as well as his own experience building start-up companies.

"The lecture will broaden the audience’s understanding of the role of entrepreneurship in their lives and in society and its power to make positive change," Baker said.

While the event will showcase Baker’s expertise, it will also include some of the ceremonial traditions of a formal academic investiture. Baker will be presented with a symbolic captain’s chair as will George Farris, a professor emeritus who retired from Rutgers Business School in 2011 after 31 years on the faculty.

Farris was instrumental in providing Rutgers Business School with a $1.5 million gift from the Celia Lipton Farris and Victor W. Farris Foundation, which is named after his aunt and uncle. The foundation’s gift was matched by a pledge from an anonymous donor to fund the $3 million endowed faculty position.

During his career at Rutgers, Farris was the founding director of the Technology Management Research Center and served as acting dean of the Graduate School of Management, which later became Rutgers Business School.