Title: Entrepreneurship an Ideology that Drives the Acceptance of Inequality

Biography:

Robert N. Eberhart (Ph.D. Stanford 2014) directs research at Stanford University Graduate School of Business where he studies entrepreneurship and how it shapes society. He earned his Ph.D. in Management Science from Stanford University and his academic publications span topics such as new theoretical constructs on how institutional change has complex effects on new firms and how entrepreneurship is changing society. He sits on the boards of technical ventures and non-profits in the U.S. and Japan. Before his academic career, Dr. Eberhart was a partner at Pacific Rim Partners, and he was the founder and CEO of WineInStyle KK in Tokyo, Japan. He has advised governments in the U.S., Japan and Sweden. Prior to founding WineInStyle, Dr. Eberhart was an executive with semiconductor and electronics hardware companies.

Abstract

We explore the acceptance of new contingent work relationships in the United States to reveal an emergent entrepreneurial ideology. Our argument is that these new work relationships represent a new social order not situated in the conglomerates and labor unions of the past, but on a confluence of neo-liberalism and individual action situated in the discourse of entrepreneurialism, employability and free agency. This new employment relationship, which arose during the economic and social disruptions in the 1970s, defines who belongs inside an organization (and can take part in its benefits) and who must properly remain outside to fend for themselves. More generally, the fusing of entrepreneurship with neo-liberalism has altered not only how we work and where we work, but also what we believe is appropriate work and what rewards should accompany it.