Good ideas and entrepreneurial initiatives sometimes fall short of their true potential because of limited resources.
The Academy will provide funding for faculty and graduate students to facilitate and stimulate the development of entrepreneurial ingenuity on the Urbana campus.
If you have a creative idea to expand the understanding and appreciation of entrepreneurship on campus, let us know. If you want to learn more about entrepreneurship by attending a professional conference or seminar or would like to develop an experience-based learning program for students, get in touch. Other initiatives that would qualify for support include:
- Research support for faculty that enhances understanding of entrepreneurship
- Support to attend entrepreneurship competitions such as business plan and case competitions
- Assistance in the exploration of an entrepreneurial opportunity such as a social entrepreneurship initiative
- Creative projects that have the potential to generate social, intellectual, or economic value to the Illinois community
Awards up to $5,000 will be granted. To get
started, contact the dean of your college. The dean provides the first
level of screening, and recommends appropriate projects to the executive
director of the Academy. Applications are accepted on a rotating basis
and a review and decision will be made within 30 days of submission
to the Academy.
Download the request for proposal
Entrepreneurship and Hispanic Communities -- Proposal to Formalize a Cross-Campus Initiative
Ann Abbott & Darcy Lear
Department of Spanish, Italian & Portuguese, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
2006
Across the University of Illinois, several trends have recently emerged or gained prominence.
- The spread of entrepreneurial thinking throughout the U of I campus and across disciplines, with the Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership serving as a catalyst. This coincides with the presidential mandate to plan for an entrepreneurial university with the goal of becoming socially, academically and operationally entrepreneurial.
- The emphasis on public engagement at the U of I through curricular innovations and community-based learning.
- A growing Hispanic community and its important relationships with our university.
Although these trends have emerged independently of each other, if connected they can create a strong impetus to address the concerns of the University and all its constituents. Our proposal addresses these three trends through two initiatives: the establishment of a cross-campus working group and a multimedia documentation of the work that is currently being done.
Spanish and Entrepreneurship Working Group
We will invite faculty who either engage in actual entrepreneurship or approach their work related to Hispanic communities in entrepreneurial ways to participate. We will promote a broad understanding of entrepreneurship by including initiatives that create value in academic, business, social, and cultural contexts. We will focus on entrepreneurial activities within Hispanic communities as well as entrepreneurial relationships among university and Hispanic communities.
Youth Social Entrepreneurship Conference
Ann Bishop
Graduate School of Library & Information Science and Community Informatics Initiative
2006
Support is sought from the Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership for a Youth as Social Entrepreneurs symposium, to be held in April 2006 on the Illinois campus. Illinois Extension and the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences will also collaborate.
Youth from across the country will participate. Groups include the Hispanic Youth Symposium in Washington, DC; the Llano Grande Center for Research and Development, in Texas; the Youth Action Research Institute of the Institute for Community Research in Hartford, Connecticut; the Youth Media Workshop in Champaign-Urbana; Café Teatro Batey Urbano in Chicago; Street Level Youth Media in Chicago; and Community Concepts from East St. Louis, Illinois. Youth will have the opportunity to present their experiences, hear from other students and project staff; and strengthen their knowledge and skills in social entrepreneurship.
Economic, Intellectual, Political, and Social Entrepreneurism among Immigrants in Non-Traditional Destinations
Noreen M. Sugrue
Women and Gender in Global Perspectives
2006
BACKGROUND AND NEED FOR PROJECT
Focusing on non-traditional destinations is important because new destinations are experiencing surges in population growth. For example, in 2000, immigrant population grew by 50 percent in more than half of all Illinois counties and most Illinois counties are neither traditional urban ethnic enclaves nor traditional immigrant destinations. In addition, non-traditional destinations have more limited and varied economic opportunities than traditional urban destinations; therefore, entrepreneurial behavior becomes even more important than it is in traditional ethnic urban enclaves. For example, a meatpacking plant opens in rural Iowa, drawing new immigrants to the community because of the jobs available, when the meat packing plant closes, unless a strong immigrant economic infrastructure has been constructed due to the entrepreneurial activities of immigrants, non-urban communities cannot absorb these immigrants into their labor market, therefore, immigrants will be forced to find new places to live; they will become the migrant workers of the 21st century: service sector and low wage factory migrant workers. In short, without an immigrant entrepreneurial class in these non-traditional destinations, recent immigrants to non-traditional destinations will exhibit living and internal migration patterns that more resemble farm workers/farm hands than it does their counterparts who immigrate to traditional destinations. And, along with that migrant lifestyle comes familial, health, economic, educational, and political instability.
To avoid the creation of the 21st century migrant workers, immigrants must create and sustain not only a strong economic foundation, but also strong political, educational, and social foundations, and the way that is done is through entrepreneurial activities. However, to fully understand the creation of these communities and sustainable infrastructures requires that we expand our definition of entrepreneurial activities and entrepreneur. The creation of sustainable communities requires economic, intellectual, social, and political entrepreneurs. The ‘new’ entrepreneurs, like traditional economic entrepreneurs, must be leaders and not risk averse. Also, like economic entrepreneurial activities, the ‘new’ or expanded entrepreneurial activities require that people invest capital and exploit social connections to achieve the desired ends.
SPECIFIC ACTIVITIES TO BE UNDERTAKEN
To fully develop a line of inquiry linking entrepreneurism and immigration, a working group of interdisciplinary scholars must be brought together. In that group conceptual arguments will be developed and empirical studies will be designed, funded (hopefully), and carried out. However, in order to get to the point of empirical work, including hypothesis testing, a small group of scholars must be brought together, and for that to occur there must be a catalyst. This project is designed to be that catalyst.
To create the Illinois working group that will develop this line of inquiry, we will use the resources requested in this proposal to
- Bring in experts from academia and business to talk with us about the work we are proposing to do
- Develop and secure funding for the collection of pilot data
- Secure release time so that Illinois researchers can develop and write about the conceptual foundation that is required for the broader study of immigrants and entrepreneurial activities, especially in non-traditional locales
- Creating a sustainable Illinois working group whose focus is immigration and entrepreneurship
- Publishing theoretical and empirical articles and books in this area
- Securing funded research to test relevant hypotheses and models
- Influencing public policy in order to more effectively allow immigrant communities, in all locales, to flourish, economically, politically, and socially
Frontiers in Services Marketing Conference
Cele Otnes
Department of Business Administration, College of Business
2007
Support is sought to present research at the Frontiers in Services Marketing conference, which is dedicated to innovation in services. The paper to be presented is titled “How Ritual Use Varies with the Entrepreneurial Orientation of Firms.”
Abstract
Rituals are a popular topic within consumer behavior. Scholars have, e.g., explored meanings of holidays, gift giving and brand-community rituals. These studies find rituals to be financially, socially, and emotionally significant to consumers.
Extending Ritual Research to Marketing Strategy. Some service providers include rituals in their customer experiences. For example, during Saturn’s nationally-implemented car delivery ceremony, salespeople encircle customers, thank them for buying a car, perform a “Saturn cheer” and take photos of customers and their cars. Undoubtedly, Saturn hopes the ceremony will enhance customer satisfaction and brand loyalty, but theoretical and empirical research on how rituals can affect brand value is lacking. One promising topic is whether and how services that differ in entrepreneurial orientation (EO) differ in their strategic use of rituals. While EO is a popular research topic, less is known about how firms differing in EO engage their customers and behave towards various stakeholders. Exploring the use of rituals by service providers who differ in EO offers potentially fertile ground for bridging the gap between the literatures on ritualistic consumption and on marketing strategy.
In this study, we examine the following: How do service providers differing in EO (1) integrate rituals into their customer experiences? and (2) differ in the strategic marketing objectives they hope rituals can accomplish?
Symposium: Women’s Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS Medicines and Services in sub-Saharan Africa and the Diaspora
Ezekiel Kalipeni
Department of Geography, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Karen Flynn
Afro-American Studies and Research Program, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
2007
Co-sponsorship and support is sought for this September 2007 symposium on HIV/AIDS to be held at the University of Illinois. The papers will also be published as an edited book. Many of the proposed titles for presentation at the conference touch on issues of equality, patents, markets, pharmaceutical pricing policies, etc with reference to HIV/AIDS medications and services.
The following proposed papers are examples of those that might fit nicely with the objectives and goals of the Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership:
Dr. Agnes Chimbiri, Director, Center for Reproductive Health, College of Medicine, University of Malawi. “Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Services in Malawi: An Analysis of Organizational Culture and Institutional Obstacles.”
Dr. Susan Craddock, Institute for Global Studies, University of Minnesota. Title of Presentation: “Global Perspectives on AIDS Vaccines, Market Incentives, and Human Rights.”
Dr. Harriet Birungi, Population Council, Nairobi, Kenya. “The Business of Medicines and the Politics of Knowledge.”
Dr. Susan Craddock, Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies and Institute for Global Studies, University of Minnesota. “Patents Versus Patients? Markets, Ethics and Pharmaceutical Pricing Policies.”