John C. Dencker

About

John C. Dencker is a Professor at the D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University, where he specializes in research related to the effects of corporate restructuring on the employment relationship, necessity entrepreneurship, and the workforce consequences of generational dynamics. His work has been published in prominent journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, American Sociological Review, Industrial Relations, Organization Science, and Strategic Management Journal. Dencker holds an MA and PhD in Sociology from Harvard University and a BA in Economics and US History from Northwestern University. Prior to his current position, he was a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the School of Labor and Employment Relations and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. He has also held visiting appointments at ESADE Business School in Barcelona and the National University of Singapore. His research interests include the impact of corporate restructuring on employment, public policy programs for unemployed individuals transitioning to self-employment, generational dynamics in workplaces, and the causes and consequences of domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Business
• Economics
• Sociology
• Engineering
• Economic geography
• Operations management
• Business administration
• Engineering ethics
• Economic system

Selected publications

• The effects of opportunities and founder experience on new firm performance

  Strategic Management Journal · 2014-03-28 · 190 citations

  articleOpen access1st author

  Much prior research in entrepreneurship has focused on the role of the founder's knowledge in affecting new firm performance. Yet, little is known about how and why the entrepreneurial opportunity itself shapes outcomes in this arena. We begin filling in this critical gap in the literature by examining how the riskiness of the opportunity not only affects start‐up performance, but also conditions the relevance of the founder's distinct knowledge endowments. Analyses of a sample of 451 new firms…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Outliers: The Story of Success.

  Academy of Management Perspectives · 2010-08-01 · 151 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Necessity entrepreneurship and industry choice in new firm creation

  Strategic Management Journal · 2019-07-31 · 91 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Research Summary Research on necessity entrepreneurship has generated important insights, yet it views necessity entrepreneurs in developed countries as one encompassing group of unemployed individuals—ignoring that the level of need is not uniform but instead increases with time spent in unemployment. We begin to unpack the role of unemployment duration in necessity entrepreneurship by asking how it affects one of the most fundamental decisions in start‐ups: “what business should I be…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Determinants of Acquisition Completion: A Relational Perspective

  Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) · 2011-07-01 · 8 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  The strategic literature on relatedness in the context of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) is extensive, yet we know little about whether or how relatedness has an influence on the announcement to completion stage of the M&A process. Drawing on research on intra-industry competition and relational capabilities, we seek to shed light on the relatedness debate by examining the strategic forces that affect the completion of an announced related M&A, accounting for financial and organizat…

  Publisher

• Inequality and Entrepreneurship: Institutional Barriers Faced by Underrepresented Entrepreneurs

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2024-07-09

  article

  Entrepreneurs from under-represented groups, inherently face inequalities in starting and succeeding in their entrepreneurial endeavors. In recent years, significant progress has been made in understanding the entrepreneurial challenges faced by diverse under-represented groups, including racial minorities, women, immigrants, and justice-impacted individuals. While such previous work has been influential in identifying barriers such as restricted access to human, social, or financial resources (…

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Marc Gruber

  École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

  21 shared

• Ruth V. Aguilera

  18 shared

• Sonali Shah

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  7 shared

• Zeynep Y. Yalabik

  University of Bath

  7 shared

• Aparna Joshi

  Pennsylvania State University

  5 shared

• Grady Wallace Raines

  Cornell University

  4 shared

• Argyro Nikiforou

  Technical University of Denmark

  4 shared

• Xavier Escandell

  4 shared

Education

• PhD, Sociology

  Harvard University

  1998

• MA, Sociology

  Harvard University

  1995

• BA, College of Arts and Sciences

  Northwestern University

  1990

Awards & honors

• IDEA Thought Leader Award, Academy of Management. Entreprene…
• Saroj Parasuraman Award Finalist, Academy of Management. Gen…
• Carolyn Dexter Award Finalist, Academy of Management. Entrep…

Similar researchers at Northeastern University

• David De Cremerh-46
• Timothy Hoffh-30
• Leonard J. Glickh-7