The Department of Management at the Haslam College of Business is now officially known as the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship. The name change, requested by the department, was approved by the UT Board of Trustees in February.
“We have a strong commitment to entrepreneurship research among our faculty,” says Anne Smith, head of the department, citing faculty members Melissa Cardon, David Gras, Tim Pollock and David Williams as prominent entrepreneurship scholars. Many other department faculty members have published or are actively engaged in research related to entrepreneurship.
The name change also is indicative of the fact that most of the department’s doctoral students are pursuing entrepreneurship topics. Several years ago, the department renamed the Strategy and Organizations doctoral program Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Organizations (SEO) to reflect this, which Smith says improves the students’ positioning in the job market for assistant professorship roles.
The department, which manages the university-level Entrepreneurship and Social Entrepreneurship minors, has a significant undergraduate curriculum stake in entrepreneurship as well. In fall 2019, department members voted to add Entrepreneurship and Early-Stage Ventures as a track within the management major. Entrepreneurship is now the third largest collateral at Haslam, with 174 of the college’s 2019 graduates having chosen the path.
“The need for a change to our name reflects a strategic shift in our department,” Smith says, “but leaving the word ‘management’ allows all non-entrepreneurship faculty to continue to be connected to department activities.”
The department, Haslam and the Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation housed within the college, have been chosen to host the Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference (BCERC) in June 2020. BCERC, widely recognized as the world’s premier entrepreneurial research conference, is expected to draw more than 350 academics from around the world.
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Stacy Estep, business writer/publicist (865-974-7881, sestep3@utk.edu)
