09/04/2026
friends, join us for part 3 of IZO's newest lecture series "Asia on the move"!
we are thrilled to welcome Robert Eberhart for a talk on
"The Emergence and Effects of the Entrepreneurial Ideology"
on Wednesday, Apr 22, 6-8 pm, in room SH3.102!
Abstract:
My talk develops a theoretical account of the transformation of entrepreneurship from a bounded economic activity into a generalized system of meaning. Drawing on institutional theory and organizational sociology, it argues that the attributes traditionally associated with entrepreneurship—opportunity recognition, risk-bearing, and innovation—have been abstracted and extended across domains, forming an entrepreneurial ideology. This ideology provides a cognitive and moral framework through which individuals interpret uncertainty, responsibility, and variation in outcomes. Tracing historical shifts in institutional arrangements, the analysis shows how the erosion of collective forms of coordination and the rise of decentralized, market-based systems create conditions that require new interpretive frameworks. Entrepreneurial ideology emerges as a response to these conditions, aligning individual understanding with structural realities. I will also focus on how this framework operates across domains such as work, social provision, and technological development, and how it stabilizes interpretation across positions by providing both justification and prospect, rendering inequality and individual responsibility as legitimate and inevitable.
Bio:
Robert N. Eberhart, PhD, is an associate professor of management and international business at the University of San Diego’s Knauss School of Business, where he studies how entrepreneurship shapes society. He serves as the inaugural International Business Research Scholar and earned his PhD in Management Science from Stanford University. His research develops theoretical insights on institutional change, new firm dynamics, and the societal effects of entrepreneurial ideology. His work has been published in leading journals including Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, Strategy Science, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, and Journal of Management Inquiry.
His scholarship has received multiple honors, including the Responsible Research in Business and Management Award (2020) and the Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings (2012). He serves on the editorial boards of Organization Science and Strategic Management Journal, is a visiting faculty member at Oxford University, and previously served as Vice Chair of the U.S.–Japan Innovation and Entrepreneurship Council.
Information on the lecture series Asia on the Move:
When humans migrate, they carry along their pasts, languages, sentiments, stories, and dreams. In our post-national world increasingly connected by digital technologies, national identities continue to function as “works of imagination” (Appadurai) that give individuals a sense of belonging. Asia, one of the most dynamic regions in the global flux of people, goods, and services, stands in the focus of this lecture series. In six lectures spanning across two semesters, this series promotes interdisciplinary perspectives to studying the mobility of people, memories, and imaginations across and beyond Asia.
looking forward to seeing you there!
