Education
William Gartner got his Bachelor degree in Business Administration from the University of Washington in 1975. Two years later, in 1977, he received a Master of Business Administration with a major in Business Policy, from the same university.
After a year – working as a manager at the car rental company Hertz and for the army engineering corps – Gartner returned to the academic life and in 1982 he received a Ph.D. in Business Administration (Business Policy) from the University of Washington. His thesis titled "An Empirical Model of the Business Startup, and Eight Entrepreneurial Archetypes" received the 1983 Heizer Doctoral Dissertation Award, at the Academy of Management Entrepreneurship Division (Gartner Vita).
Academic Career
After finishing his doctoral thesis Gartner worked as Assistant Professor at the McIntire School of Commerce, University of Virginia (VA), between 1981 and 1985. He then moved to Georgetown University (Washington DC) and became Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the School of Business Administration, and stayed at the faculty for almost a decade, until 1993. Between 1985 and 1986, Gartner was Chair of the Academy of Management Entrepreneurship Division (California Lutheran University 2015).
In 1994, William Gartner was Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship at the School of Business Administration, University of Southern California (CA). After that he got a position at the College of Business, San Francisco State University (CA), as Professor in the Department of Management and Director of the Center for the Study of Enterprise, a position he stayed in for two years, until 1996.
After that Gartner returned to the University of Southern California, between 1996 – 2004 he held the Henry W. Simonsen Chair in Entrepreneurship at Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California.
In 2004 he moved to Clemson University (SC) and took up the position of Professor at the Arthur M. Spiro Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership, College of Business and Behavioral Science. William Gartner stayed at Clemson University for nine years, until 2013, but he spent a year as visiting Professor at the ESSEC Business School in Paris between 2011 and 2012 (Gartner Vita).
In 2017 Bill moved to Babson College where he assumed the Bertarelli Foundation Distinguished Professor of Family Entrepreneurship He is also a visiting professor of Entrepreneurship Linnaeus Vaxjo Sweden.
Research
In his research William Gartner has applied both more positivistic and hermeneutic approaches to entrepreneurial research (Hjorth & Johanisson 2005). During his career as a scholar he has focused both on gathering large quantities of data - making general conclusions based on sophisticated statistical analysis, and trying to understand the phenomena of entrepreneurship on a more theoretical level - using more narrative approaches. His dissertation: "An Empirical Model of the Business Startup, and Eight Entrepreneurial Archetypes" and the two following articles “A Conceptual Framework for Describing the Phenomenon of New Venture Creation”, Gartner 1985a, and “A Taxonomy of New Business Ventures”, Gartner, Mitchel & Vesper 1989, was written under supervision of Professor Karl Vesper, a scholar who’s work, had a large influence on Gartners research (Gartner 2014). Based on his understanding of Karl Vesper’s work, and the work of Karl Weick, Gartner formed a strong belief that new venture creation i.e. the process of organization creation begins with variation. And he began looking at Entrepreneurship from an organization-theory point of view (Gartner 2014).
As the 1980s came to an end, entrepreneurship research went through as shift in focus. Studies of the personality of the entrepreneur went out of style, and scholars became interested in the context and process of entrepreneurship. William Gartner’s article: Who is the entrepreneur? Is the wrong question, first published in 1988 is considered to be one of the pioneering works behind this shift (Landström 2010). In the article, Gartner argues against the “trait approach” to entrepreneurial research, i.e. asking “who is the entrepreneur?” and trying to define a set of personality traits and characteristics of the individuals who becomes entrepreneurs. According to Gartner, a “behavioral approach” is better suited to understand entrepreneurship. Researchers should focus on the creation of new organizations and the behavior of the entrepreneur, what he/she does, not who he/she is (Gartner 1988).
During most of the 1990s, Gartner was involved in studies of new venture creation, generating empirical evidence on the entrepreneurial processes. For example, he was involved in the development of the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics, in cooperation with Nancy Carter and Paul Reynolds (Gartner 2014). This was the first major national longitudinal dataset on nascent entrepreneurship (William B. Gartner’s Prize Lecture. 2005).
In 2005 William Gartner received the FSFNUTEK International Award for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research (today known as the Global award for Entrepreneurship Research) with the motivation:
For his studies on new venture creation and entrepreneurial behavior, combining the best parts of the positivist and hermeneutic tradition. (Gartner 2005).
In more recent years, Gartner’s research has been focused on the experiences of the entrepreneur, the stories and the narrative. Based on a belief that the best way to understand something as complex as entrepreneurship is through the stories of the entrepreneur. In 2010 he published the book ENTER: Entrepreneurial Narrative Theory Ethnomethodology and Reflexivity.
Influential articles
Gartner, William B. (1988) Who is an entrepreneur? Is the wrong question. American Journal of Small Business. 12 (4). P.11-32.
Gartner, William B. (1985) A Conceptual framework for describing and classifying the phenomenon of new venture creation. Academy of Management Review. 10 (4). P.696-706.
Gartner, William B. (1990) What are we talking about when we talk about entrepreneurship?. Journal of Business Venturing. 5 (1). P.15-28.
Books
Gartner, William B. (ed.) (2010) ENTER: Entrepreneurial Narrative Theory Ethnomethodology and Reflexivity. Clemson, SC: Clemson University Digital Press.
Gartner, William B. & Bellamy, Marlene G. (2009) Enterprise. Cincinnati, OH: Cengage / South-Western Publishing.
Gartner, William B. & Bellamy, Marlene G. (2008) Creating the Enterprise. Cincinnati, OH: Thomson / South-Western Publishing.
Gartner, William B., Shaver, Kelly G., Carter, Nancy M. & Reynolds, Paul D. (2004) Handbook of Entrepreneurial Dynamics: The Process of Business Creation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Career (in short)
2013 - Professor of Entrepreneurship and the Art of Innovation, Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, Copenhagen Business School
2013 - Professor of Entrepreneurship, School of Management, California Lutheran University
2011 - 2012 Visiting Professor, ESSEC Business School, Paris
2004 - 2013 Arthur M. Spiro Professor of Entrepreneurial Leadership, Arthur M. Spiro Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership, College of Business and Behavioral Science, Clemson University
1996 - 2004 Henry W. Simonsen Chair in Entrepreneurship, Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, Joint Appointment in the Department of Management and Organization (2000-2004), Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California
1994 - 1996 Professor in the Department of Management and Director of the Center for the Study of Enterprise, College of Business, San Francisco State University
1993 - 1994 Visiting Professor in the Henry W. Simonsen Chair in Entrepreneurship, School of Business Administration, University of Southern California
1985 - 1993 Assistant Professor (1985-1991), Associate Professor (1991-1993) and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies (1985-1993), School of Business Administration, Georgetown University
1981 - 1985 Assistant Professor, McIntire School of Commerce, University of Virginia
References
California Lutheran University (2015) Faculty profile [online] Available from: http://www.callutheran.edu/faculty/profile.php?id=wgartner [Accessed: April 10, 2015].
Curriculum Vitae (CV): William B. Gartner, revised May 2014.
Email interview with William B. Gartner, conducted by Sten K. Johanson Center for Entrepreneurship, Lund University.
Hjorth, Daniel & Johannisso, Bengt (2005) William B. Gartner’s Contribution to Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research. [Online] Available from: http://www.e-award.org/web/2005_William_B_Gartner.aspx [Accessed: April 10, 2015].
Gartner, William B. (1988) Who is an entrepreneur? Is the wrong question. American Journal of Small Business. 12 (4). P.11-32.
Gartner, William B. (2014) Entrepreneurship As Organizing. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar pub.
Gartner, William B. (2005) William B. Gartner’s Prize Lecture. [Online] Available from: http://www.e-award.org/web/2005_William_B_Gartner.aspx [Accessed: April 14, 2015].
Landström, Hans (2010) Pioneers in Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research. New York: Springer-Verlag New York Inc.