[9] In 1966, he directed a survey project through the Institute of Social Research, which explored ethnic succession in the small business populations of high-crime areas of Boston, Washington, D.C., and Chicago.
[10] Aldrich carried out subsequent waves of the study in 1968[10] and presented his dissertation, titled Organizations in a Hostile Environment for his 1969 PhD.
Following the completion of his dissertation in 1969, Aldrich accepted an assistant professorship at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
[citation needed] These studies also ultimately formed the basis of his 1990 book Ethnic Entrepreneurs, co-authored with Roger Waldinger and Robin Ward.
At the heart of this approach is the assumption that evolutionary processes are driven by entrepreneurs and organizations’ struggles to obtain scarce resources, both social and physical.