Kelley in top-50 for entrepreneurship

IU is the only university in the world to have four scholars ranked as the best 100 entrepreneurship researchers.
Better yet, they all made it in the top 50.
Four IU entrepreneurship professors were listed as top researchers in a study, written by three Howard University scholars. The study was presented at the 2009 Academy of Management Conference in August.
Donald F. Kuratko, Dean A. Shepherd and Jeffrey G. Covin from IU’s Kelley School of Business and David B. Audretsch from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs were ranked amongst the “100 Most Prolific Scholars in Entrepreneurship.” Shepherd was ranked second; Audretsch, seventh; Kuratko, 28th; and Covin, 45th.
“It validates what we knew – that we have one of the greatest entrepreneurial faculties here at the Kelley School at IU,” Kuratko said.
Kuratko, the executive director of the Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, said it’s exciting to see the field grow.
Some new, young faculty members have recently joined the Kelley School. He thinks they will focus on new and different topics, like social and international entrepreneurship, which will be valuable to students.
Matthew Berman, a 2008 Innovation Fellow, said the Johnson Center taught him a framework for thinking that he can apply in business and other fields. The entrepreneurship program “teaches you how to think outside of the box,” he said, giving students the ability to consider traditional and nontraditional approaches to problems.
Even though Kuratko was just listed as one of the best
entrepreneurial scholars in the world, he will still work to further his research. He said he will focus next on corporations by “looking at how innovation is fostered and advanced inside of existing organizations.”
Several students have benefited from the resources IU has for entreprueners.
The Hoosier Hatchery, a business incubator for students to develop business ideas, will probably open sometime in November, Kuratko said.
Zac Workman, who will graduate in May, founded ZW Enterprises and created a new energy drink around the beginning of his junior year.
“The Johnson Center played a pretty big role in helping me with the struggles of starting a new business,” Workman said. He said the Center’s high ranking doesn’t surprise him at all.
The faculty is inviting and supportive, always encouraging students to foster their own ideas, he said.
Also this month, U.S. News and World Report published “2010 America’s Best Colleges” rankings. The report listed IU’s undergraduate entrepreneurship courses as fourth and ranked the Kelley School as the 12th best in the nation for undergraduate business studies, according to an IU press.
“It was a great feeling to know that we were able to enhance IU’s reputation in this fashion because scholarship and research is the foundation of everything we do in academia,” Kuratko said.