Andac Arikan is an Associate Professor of Management at Florida Atlantic University. Andac recently won USASBE Ray Smilor Volunteer of the Year Award (Great job — congrats!!). We sat down with him to chat a bit more about entrepreneurship education.
Question: How did you become affiliated with USASBE? How do you benefit from your affiliation?
In the year 2012, Gary Castrogiovanni, my colleague at Florida Atlantic University and one of USASBE’s Longenecker Fellows was chairing the then titled “Developmental Papers Track” and was told that he could hire a “vice chair”. (Thankfully) He asked me if I would be interested. At that time I had not heard of USASBE before as my primary area of research/teaching was not entrepreneurship. I happily accepted, seeing it as an opportunity to go to a new conference and be exposed to a new group of people. That was my first USASBE conference and I loved every minute of it. It was a relatively small (e.g. compared to Academy of Management Conferences) group of very enthusiastic researchers, teachers and practitioners, working on very interesting topics and engaging in genuine, productive interactions. I met some really nice people and made friends. The next two years (i.e. 2013, 2014), I volunteered to chair the Developmental Papers Track. So was the pattern formed. Since then, I volunteered every year and chaired several tracks including Competitive Papers Track (2015, 2017, 2019), Roundtables Track (2016), and most recently Emerging Teaching Exercises Track (2018, 2020). As a very nice and welcome surprise, I was given the Prestigious Ray Smilor Volunteer of the Year Award at the 2020 Conference. I look forward to continuing my contributions to USASBE at various capacities in future years.
I like being affiliated with USASBE because I have some research interests that relate to entrepreneurship theory and entrepreneurial contexts. I also use a lot of entrepreneurship-related ideas in my teaching. To that effect, my involvement with USASBE helps me be “up to date” on entrepreneurship theory, practice, and pedagogy.
A secondary benefit of my affiliation with USASBE arises due to the strategic significance my institution places on Entrepreneurship. “Leadership, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship” is listed in Florida Atlantic University’s 2015–2025 Strategic Plan as one of the core “Platforms” that will guide the University’s goals and strategic actions. My department, The Department of Management Programs, is at the center of this “Platform” as it houses the Adams Center for Entrepreneurship with my department chair being also the director of the Adams Center. My involvement with USASBE thus aligns me with the long term goals of my Department and my University.
Question: How did you get into entrepreneurship education? How does your involvement with USASBE help your teaching?
Interestingly, I have not taught any entrepreneurship classes yet. In fact, I sometimes wonder if I am the only USASBE member who does not teach entrepreneurship. I primarily teach strategy at the undergraduate and MBA levels. Since I got involved with USASBE though, I see ideas related to entrepreneurship seeping more and more into my coverage of almost every strategy topic including external analysis, internal analysis, strategy formulation, and strategy implementation. I find myself placing increased emphasis on topics such as first mover advantages, industry creation, institutional entrepreneurship, blue ocean strategies, corporate venturing, etc. in my classes. I also benefited a lot from being exposed to teaching exercises as a track chair and as a conference participant. Obviously, not all exercises apply to my strategy classes but I do find some that I try to adjust and adopt either in the context of discussions or short practical exercises. Finally, I genuinely believe that my class discussions became more “colorful” as a result of my exposure to the amazing keynote speakers and their experiences at USASBE conferences over the years. I find myself repeatedly relating some of what I heard from these speakers to my students.
Question: What is your favorite class to teach and why?
I enjoy all classes I teach but there is one class that I am involved with that I get to learn from the most and that is “Executive Forum”. This is a class that all our incoming MBA students take. It is also open to the public. Throughout the semester, we invite entrepreneurs and C-Suite Executives (about ten a semester) to come to our campus and give one-hour talks to our students. Students get a chance to listen to these very influential individuals’ life stories, ask them questions, and network with them. They then engage in online discussions about the talks and I moderate these discussions. This class gives me exposure to a lot of successful entrepreneurs, but perhaps more importantly allows me to probe our students’ thoughts about their personalities, value systems, philosophies, the difficulties they faced, the sacrifices they made, and the rewards they eventually reaped. I find these discussion highly valuable in terms of getting to know our students and figuring out how I can tailor my classes to better fit their needs. I also enjoyed some research-related benefits from this class. I recently published a paper on the nature of opportunism in Journal of Business Ethics. The topic of the paper was inspired by some of the discussions in this class and the data came from the students in this class.
As an interesting side note, I met Michael Houlihan, the founder of Barefoot Wines at the 2013 USASBE Conference where he was one of the Plenary speakers. In 2014, I arranged him and his wife to come to Florida and be Executive Forum Speakers. I also assigned my students the book they wrote — “The Barefoot Spirit”. Students loved reading the book and then listening the authors speak in person.
Question: What is your current research focus and what is its teaching-related implications?
My research is on geographical clusters, the likes of Silicon Valley and Boston’s Route 128. I study how they form, why they form, what advantages/disadvantages they provide to firms, and how can firms gain a competitive advantage against other firms located in the same cluster. Most recently, I collected data with a doctoral student of mine in a Nigerian leather goods production cluster to assess if small business owners draw mental health-related benefits from locating their businesses in an industrial cluster. It turns out they do. The work highlights the importance of social support (e.g. material, informational, emotional) on small business owners’ mental well-being and by implication their businesses’ performance. The implication for teaching is that perhaps we should teach our students the significance of socializing and community relationships for entrepreneurship, not just to access scarce business resources but also for their mental well-being.
Question: Can you share a fun fact about yourself? Something that makes you unique?
When I was in college, I acted in TV commercials, and at some point was offered a lead role in a movie. I declined, applied for a master’s program in Industrial Engineering and became a graduate assistant instead. Talk about career choice! Then when I was a PhD student, I did partner dancing for about 5 years, mainly Salsa and Tango. I even performed at a street fair once. I also took painting and drawing classes at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology. After my two girls were born, I got interested in photography. These days, I am teaching myself how to use Photoshop.
