Major entrepreneurship conference headed to IU

The world's leading entrepreneurship conference with 320 researchers from more than 29 countries is taking place at the Kelley School of Business until Saturday. This is the first time the 2006 Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference has been held in the Midwest since it was founded in 1981. \nAndrew Zacharakis, John H. Muller Jr. Chair for Entrepreneurship at Babson College, said BCERC is the leading entrepreneurship conference in the world due to the quality of the professors who attend. \nZacharakis said Kelley School professors have been coming to the conference for many years and the school was chosen to host the event this year based on IU's overall reputation and its specific reputation in entrepreneurship. \n"Schools from all over the world asked to co-sponsor the conference," Zacharakis said. \nMore than 500 abstracts were submitted for consideration to be presented at the conference and more than 200 were selected by a blind review board. A few examples of entrepreneurship research areas to be presented are family enterprise, venture finance and cognition of entrepreneurs.\nIU is building its reputation in entrepreneurship. Last year the Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship in the Kelley School was ranked 4th in the nation in Entrepreneurship Magazine.\nSue Artmeier, assistant director of IU's Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, said the University's entrepreneurship program has a national reputation because it is one of only six schools that offers a Ph.D. in entrepreneurship.\n"We are one of the few schools in the nation that offers a major in entrepreneurship at the undergraduate level and an MBA and Ph.D.," Artmeier said. \nIU faculty presenting at the conference are Jeffrey Covin and Dean Shepherd from the Kelley School of Business management department and David Audretsch from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. \nAlso presenting from IU are Ph.D. entrepreneurship graduate John Robert Mitchell and current Ph.D. entrepreneurship students, Robert Garrett, Steven Bradley, Bradley George, Kim Green and Hana Milanov. \nIn conjunction with the conference, the Kelley School of Business is holding the 2006 BCERC Doctoral Consortium Program, which gives doctoral students insight into current research issues through meeting with consortium faculty. About 30 doctoral students from 10 countries are expected to participate in this year's program. Shepherd, who is also the co-coordinator of this year's doctoral consortium program, said he wants to show participants what it's like to be a junior faculty member. The program covers hot research areas of entrepreneurship, how to structure and write a dissertation and how to publish research. \nParticipants will then give presentations based on what they learn from meeting with faculty members at the conference. \n"They're sort of forced to meet with leading professionals in the field," Shepherd said. \nSome of the entrepreneurship issues to be covered in this year's program are social networks, decision making processes of entrepreneurs and resource providers and how a lack of resources helps innovation. \nThe conference is in its 26th year and will be held next year at the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid, Spain.