[467] NASDAQ, Lowe Foundations Tap MTSU Professor For Research

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 20, 2011
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Gina Logue, 615-898-5081

NASDAQ, LOWE FOUNDATIONS TAP MTSU PROFESSOR FOR RESEARCH
Doug Tatum to Explore Impact of Fast-growing Companies on National Economy

(MURFREESBORO) –Doug Tatum, holder of the Wright Chair of Entrepreneurship at MTSU, has been tapped to lead a major national business research initiative to examine exceptional growth companies (EGCs).
Tatum will head concentrated research for the Institute for Exceptional Growth Companies (IEGC) to investigate the performance of EGCs through economic cycles and how they contribute to job creation and economic prosperity.
The institute is a creation of the Edward Lowe Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports entrepreneurship with emphasis on companies that have moved beyond the start-up phase. Funding is provided by a $730,000 grant from the NASDAQ OMX Educational Foundation, a nonprofit organization funded exclusively by contributions from NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc., the world’s largest exchange company.
“The research, we believe, will yield enormous insight into the dynamics of EGCs, how they interact with capital markets and, ultimately, their impact on job growth,” says Tatum.
Under the auspices of the IEGC, Tatum will probe the relationship between equity funding sources and fast-growing companies with special emphasis on high-growth companies in the second and third stages of development, including companies with 10-99 employees and 100-499 employees, respectively.
The institute will leverage the National Establishment Time Series (NETS), a data base that tracks the performance of more than 41 million businesses from 1990 to 2009, to facilitate a better understanding of EGCs’ impact on community and economic development.
“I believe that we’re at an historic economic inflection point in the United States,” says Tatum. “It’s important we gain an appreciation of how companies transition to financial scale and how we capitalize that growth. We are in a phase in which our only unique advantage may be our entrepreneurs.”
The author of No Man’s Land: What to do when your company is too big to be small and too small to be big, Tatum was Chairman and CEO of Tatum LLC for more than 17 years, growing the company to the largest executive services consulting firm in the United States with more than 1,000 employees and professionals in 30 offices. He later served on the firm’s board and as Chairman Emeritus until the company merged with Spherion Corporation in early 2010.


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ATTENTION, MEDIA: For color jpeg photos of Doug Tatum and/or the message announcing the creation of the Institute for Exceptional Growth Companies on the NASDAQ tower in New York’s Times Square, contact Gina Logue in the MTSU Office of News and Media Relations at 615-898-5081 or gklogue@mtsu.edu.