UVA Darden Hosts 10th Annual Global Entrepreneurship and Innovation Research Conference

By Gosia Glinska


“We need innovation, entrepreneurship and new ideas to make the world a better place,” said University of Virginia Darden School of Business Dean Scott Beardsley, as he welcomed leading scholars from around the world to the 10th annual Global Entrepreneurship and Innovation Research Conference, held at Darden’s Washington, D.C., area Grounds in the Rosslyn district of Arlington, Virginia, on 7–8 May.

Established 10 years ago by Darden’s Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the two-day conference is now a standing partnership with the University of Cambridge Judge Business School and the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Business and Economics. Bringing together over 60 scholars from nine countries, the event offers a multidisciplinary environment for scholarly conversation about current and emerging issues in entrepreneurship and innovation research.

“Rigorous, pan-disciplinary research that crosses the fields of strategy, economics and public policy is critical to solving intractable global issues,” said Beardsley, “from the impact of resource scarcity and human displacement, to automation and the future of work, to new financial mechanisms.”

The conference keynote was presented by Josh Lerner, Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking and head of the Entrepreneurial Management unit at Harvard Business School, and he explored major topics for future entrepreneurship research. Lerner noted that while classic questions — “Are entrepreneurs born or made?” and “How does financing matter for entrepreneurship?” — are yet to be fully answered, several new compelling research areas — the slowing of entrepreneurial dynamics in developed economies, changing financing patterns, and the changing locus of entrepreneurship and innovation — have emerged.

During a special session on patent data, Jan Bena, professor at the University of British Columbia and a fellow of the Batten Institute, unveiled the Global Corporate Patent Dataset, which links 3.1 million patent awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office between 1980 and 2017 to 9,200 publicly listed firms worldwide. “The dataset is significantly more accurate and up-to-date than what was previously available, said Professor Pedro Matos, leader of the patent dataset project team and academic director of Darden’s Richard A. Mayo Center for Asset Management. “This will enable researchers to discover insights about different aspects of corporate innovation.”

Wharton Professor David Hsu, an expert in entrepreneurial innovation and management, underscored the high-caliber of research papers presented at the conference. “This is one of the few places where there is emphasis on the quality of entrepreneurship and innovation research,” he said. “It’s evidence based, it’s rigorous, yet at the same time it’s not focused on just one discipline or one perspective.”

Darden Professor Mike Lenox, an expert in innovation strategy and one of the co-chairs of the conference, noted that disciplinary diversity is important for innovation research. “When you speak to your very narrow academic community, you can get very wrapped around your own thinking,” he said. “But when you see how others are asking questions, the data they’re bringing to bear, it expands your own horizons and improves your own creativity as a researcher.”

Harvard’s Lerner pointed out the conference’s impact beyond the ivory tower of academia. “Everyone here is not just doing research,” he said. “They are also teaching MBAs, undergraduates and Ph.D. students on topics related to entrepreneurship and innovation, so many ideas presented here will find their way into the classroom and into the students, who will then go out into the real world and do things.”

In that spirit, scholars considered real-world implications of their research during a panel discussion about the entrepreneurial ecosystem around the nation’s capital. Local civic leaders and experts Christina Winn from Arlington Economic Development, Tim Meyers from advisory firm Baker Tilly Virchow Krause, and Parag Scheth from the Maryland Venture Fund explored how the region’s assets enabled successful recruitment of Amazon to site its new headquarters in Arlington. They noted the need for policy and infrastructure to achieve inclusive economic growth, and they sought solutions for accelerating technology transfer from university labs to the marketplace, among other current topics.

Next year, the Global Entrepreneurship and Innovation Research Conference will be hosted at Cambridge Judge in Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Academic Papers Presented at the 2019 Global Entrepreneurship and Innovation Research Conference

  • “The Bayh-Dole Act versus the Professor’s Privilege” by Thomas Astebro (HEC Paris)
  • “The Entrepreneurial Commercialization of Science: Evidence from ‘Twin’ Discoveries’ by Matt Marx (Boston University)
  • “What is the US Comparative Advantage in Entrepreneurship? Evidence from Israeli Migration to the United States” by Jorge Guzman (Columbia Business School)
  • “Parallel Innovation Contests” by Ersin Korpeoglu (University College London)
  • “How Redeployable Are Patent Assets? Evidence from Failed Startups” by Rosemarie Ziedonis (Boston University)
  • “When the Going Gets Tough: New Venture Legitimacy Buffering to Mitigate Product Development Failure” by Amrita Lahiri (Washington State University)
  • “The Life Cycle of Corporate Venture Capital” by Song Ma (Yale School of Management)
  • “Social Innovation Meets Digital Innovation: Does Crowdfunding Benefit Social Entrepreneurship?” by Wendy Chen (George Mason University)
  • “Effect of Venture Capital Investments on Ventures’ Product Failures: Evidence from the Product Recalls in the Medical Industry” by Moonsik Shin (Purdue University)
  • “Shifts in Consensus on Time Horizons on VC-Backed Entrepreneurial Boards” by Ting Yao (UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School)
  • “The Role of Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy on Entrepreneurs’ Project Financing Design Preferences” by Dalee Yoon (Purdue University)
  • “Defensive Innovation and Firm Growth in the U.S.: Impact of International Trade” by Jo Karam (University of Maryland)
  • “The Leveraging of Silicon Valley” by Jesse Davis (UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School)
  • “Geographic Concentration of Venture Capital Investors, Corporate Monitoring, and Firm Performance” by Seungjoon Oh (Peking University)
  • “David’s Slings and Goliath’s Spears: Pioneering Firms Pathways of Global Expansion for Diffusion of Mobile Money Industry” by Audra Wormald (University of Maryland)
  • “Alternative Technology Firms in Established Markets as Tempered Radicals: Global Entry and Scaling of Electric Vehicle Technology” by Sunasir Dutta (Minnesota Carlson School of Management)
  • “Effort and Selection Effects of Performance Pay in Knowledge Creation” by Erina Ytsma (Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business)
  • “Organizational Design, Overconfidence, and Learning in Entrepreneurial Teams” by Daniel Elfenbein (Washington University Olin Business School)
  • “Green to Gone? The Impact of Regional Institutional Logics on New Firm Survival” by Jeff York (University of Colorado Leeds School of Business)
  • “Informal Certification: Resolving the Tension Between Lowering Barriers to Entry and New Firm Legitimacy” by Robert Eberhart (Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business)
About the University of Virginia Darden School of Business

The University of Virginia Darden School of Business prepares responsible global leaders through unparalleled transformational learning experiences. Darden’s graduate degree programs (MBA, MSBA and Ph.D.) and Executive Education & Lifelong Learning programs offered by the Darden School Foundation set the stage for a lifetime of career advancement and impact. Darden’s top-ranked faculty, renowned for teaching excellence, inspires and shapes modern business leadership worldwide through research, thought leadership and business publishing. Darden has Grounds in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the Washington, D.C., area and a global community that includes 18,000 alumni in 90 countries. Darden was established in 1955 at the University of Virginia, a top public university founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819 in Charlottesville, Virginia.

 

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