Johnson Innovation Speaker Series takes on the roles of business schools in addressing economic inequality
October 24, 2016
Dedicated to bringing a distinguished business professional to the University of South Carolina Upstate for the benefit of the students and the local business community, the third annual Johnson Innovation Speaker Series will feature Dr. Peter W. Roberts on Thursday, November 3. The event is from 12:05 to 12:55 p.m. at the George Dean Johnson, Jr. College of Business and Economics and lunch will be provided.
Roberts is a professor of organization and management at Emory University and academic director of social enterprise @ Goizueta. His presentation topic is “Turning to Business? The Roles of Business Schools in Addressing Economic Inequality.”
Roberts’ general research interests relate to how the behavior and performance of organizations evolve over time. In the past, he studied these issues in diverse settings, including the pharmaceutical, hotel, wine and restaurant industries. Recently, he is directing his interests in entrepreneurship and organizational performance toward topics in the field of social enterprise. His current projects focus on social entrepreneurs and accelerators, on microbusiness development and on the global specialty coffee industry. For the past several years, Roberts has also been spearheading Social Enterprise @ Goizueta, whose focus is to better understand how market-based solutions can be applied to address a range of important societal issues. This led to the establishment of the global Entrepreneurship Database Program, the Start:ME accelerator program, and the Transparent Trade Coffee and Grounds for Empowerment programs. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Alberta and has previously on the faculties of Columbia University, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Australian Graduate School of Management.
The cost is $10 for the public and free for USC Upstate students, faculty and staff. To register for the event, which is required to receive a lunch, visit www.alumni.uscupstate.edu/johnsoninnovation. For more information, visit
www.uscupstate.edu/upstateinnovates or contact Brian Brady, director of the USC Upstate GreenHouse Business Incubator, at (864) 503-7623 or [email protected].
About USC Upstate
USC Upstate offers more than 40 bachelor’s degree programs in the liberal arts and sciences, business administration, nursing, and teacher education, and master’s degrees in education, informatics, and nursing. Among the fastest-growing universities in South Carolina, USC Upstate is a diverse and dynamic community of 6,000 students from across the Upstate, 36 states, and 15 countries. As a leading metropolitan universities in the Southeast, USC Upstate has its main campus in Spartanburg, two locations in Greenville, and a growing number of programs online. The USC Upstate Spartans, which fields 17 varsity sports, compete on the NCAA Division I level as a member of the Atlantic Sun Conference. Nearly 26,000 alumni have earned degrees from USC Upstate and approximately 85 percent choose to remain in the Upstate region to build their lives and careers, making a significant impact of the region’s economy and quality of life. Learn more at www.uscupstate.edu.
