Streaming Media

Additional Streaming Media

Images

LaTanya White, Ph.D. is a 2022 graduate of the PHD Program in Leadership and Change at Antioch University.

LaTanya White at her Dissertation Defense.

From L-R: Dr. E. Murell Dawson, Committee Member, Dr. Donna Ladkin, Committee Member, Dr. S. Aqeel Tirmizi, Committee Chair.

Dissertation Committee

  • S. Aqeel Tirmizi, Ph.D., Committee Chair
  • Donna Ladkin, Ph.D., Committee Member
  • E. Murell Dawson, Ph.D., Committee Member

Keywords

Black entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education, Dynastic Wealth™, leadership, racial equity, racial wealth gap

Document Type

Dissertation

Publication Date

2022

Abstract

This study explores the underlying causes of the racial wealth gap between Black and White Americans: the absence of intergenerational wealth transfers in Black business families. As American wealth becomes concentrated into fewer and fewer hands, the data reveal that one third of the 400 wealthiest Americans inherited their wealth from the entrepreneurial endeavors of earlier generations in their family, some creating entrepreneurial dynasties. An important aspect of succession planning is the construct of generativity. Generativity is practiced through leading, nurturing, promoting, and teaching the next generation to create things to “move down the generational chain and connect to a future” (Kotre, 1996, p. xv). There is little research that informs us about the generative intent of Black entrepreneurs. First-generation Black wealth creators operating in the beauty industry with dynastic and generative intent were the target population for this study. Interpretative phenomenological analysis of the data revealed that the paradigmatic ethos and frame of mind that developed from the lived experience of the study participants included the following themes: A Celebration of Blackness, Black Mothers: A Guiding Light, Destined for Purposeful Work, Our Health Our Wealth, and You Can’t Pay It Back. The themes imply that entrepreneurial education and training for first-generation Black entrepreneurs with dynastic intent must contextualize the Black lived experience. The study offers a model for Dynastic Wealth™, which includes extensive implications for entrepreneurial training and curriculum design changes for practitioners and policymakers. The model has been contextualized for the Black entrepreneurial experience and is designed through a lens of racial equity. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Comments

LaTanya White

ORCID Scholar ID #: #0000-0002-1552-6043

Dr. LaTanya White is an inclusive scholar-practitioner working at the intersection of racial equity and entrepreneurship curriculum design. Over the course of her professional career, she has personally coached and consulted more than 600 Black urban entrepreneurs. A 2x author, TEDx Speaker, leader and strategist, Dr. White is the founder and principal consultant for Concept Creative Group, a technical assistance firm focused on business development, capacity building, and Dynastic Wealth™ transfer for Black entrepreneurs. White was selected to participate in the inaugural cohorts for the Change Ventures Fellowship in Bali, Indonesia as well as the Center for Black Innovation’s EcoSystem Builders Fellowship. White previously spent 11 years serving as an entrepreneurship educator at a prominent Historically Black College/University, an experience that informed her advocacy for Black entrepreneurship as a pathway to wealth creation. Dr. White developed her expertise in the intersection of the racial wealth gap and Black entrepreneurship through her graduate studies at Antioch University’s Graduate School of Leadership and Change. As a result of her doctoral research on intergenerational wealth transfer and Black business families, Dr. White has designed an evidence-based entrepreneurship training model that specifically addresses the ancestral narrative and lived experience of Black entrepreneurs using a lens of racial equity. By academic definition, a family reaches dynastic status once either the business or the wealth has been controlled by the founding family for at least three consecutive generations. Driven by Proverbs 13:22, Dr. White is committed to the advocacy and action required to build an entrepreneurial dynasty that begins with her daughter Sparrow and that will benefit her grandchildren’s grandchildren.

Download

Share

COinS