Eric Dent

Eric B. Dent, Ph.D. (born November 20 1961) is the Dean of the School of Business at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke and is a leading American expert in the field of Complexity Theory.

Life

Born in Easton, Pennsylvania, Dr. Dent was the son of an IBM employee; hence, his family moved six times, finally settling in Boca Raton, Florida. He attended St. Andrew's School, then attended Emory University, gaining an M.S. and B.S. degrees in Computer Science. Dr. Dent then moved to Gaithersburg, Maryland where he worked for IBM, designing satellite communication systems. Dr. Dent served as Vice President, Operations and General Manager of the Washington, DC office of the Todd Organization, a national executive compensation consulting firm. For several years Dr. Dent worked as a management consultant with Macro International . As Technical Director, he managed over $10 million of training and development contracts with the federal government. He most frequently consulted with The Royal Bank of Canada, The United States Navy, and Westinghouse Electric Corporation.

In 1993, Dr. Dent founded Always Improvement, a management consulting firm dedicated to organizational improvement. His recent work has been in the areas of organizational change, consultation skills, team-building, conflict resolution, strategic planning, total quality management, leadership, and business process assessment.

In the same year, he began work on his M.B.A with a major in Organizational Behavior and Development and a minor in Finance. He then began his doctoral work, receiving a Ph.D in Management and Organization from the School of Business and Public Management at George Washington University. During this time, he was a lecturer at the University of Maryland University College, eventually becoming Executive Director of the Doctoral Programs.

During 2002-2003 Dr. Dent co-hosted LeaderTalk, a talk show in which CEOs and other thought leaders were interviewed about their business wisdom.

He began his tenure as Dean of the School of Business at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke in August 2003, beginning a process of reorganization and modernization along the lines of the accredidation inspectors and normal school practice.

He has also twice visited Cuba, lecturing at the Biennial Seminar on the Philosophical, Epistemological and Methodological Implications of Complexity Theory conference, the second time speaking on "The Challenges of Observation, Inquiry, and Measurement in Complexity Theory."

Dr. Dent is a life-long Methodist, currently attending Chestnut Street UMC in Lumberton, NC where he lives with his family. He is active in various groups in Robeson County, such as the Robeson Community Foundation, Robeson Economic Forum, and the Chamber of Commerce.

Annotated List of Works

*"America, A Proselytizing Society"

*"Can We Agree on the Force, and Call it God? Multi-disciplined Evidence and Organizational Implications"

*"The Observation, Inquiry, and Measurement Challenges Surfaced by Complexity Theory"

*“Worldview Assumptions: Paradigm Shift in Progress?”

*"Challenging Resistance to Change"

*"Seinfeld", Professor of Organizational Behavior: The Psychological Contract and Systems Thinking"
* [http://www.uncp.edu/home/dente/articles.html Full List]

Quotes

*"Complexity theory is an approach to research, study, and perspective that is holistic, interdependent and nonhierarchical."

References

* [http://www.uncp.edu/home/dente/ Short Biography]
*Bigelow, Scott. "Dean talks business in Cuba." Robesonian [Lumberton, NC] 07 Mar 2004