CABE Seminar: Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Centre for Asian Business and Economics Seminar: Entrepreneurship and Innovation

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Speaker Profiles and Abstracts

Dr. Hui Wang

Dr. Hui Wang is an Assistant Professor of Applied Economics at the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. He is the Associate Director and research fellow of the Institute of Economic Policy Research of Peking University (IEPR-PKU). Dr. Hui Wang holds a PhD and Master degree in Economics from University of Toronto. His research interests include Industrial Organization, Labour Economics, Economic Development, and Applied Econometrics. He has published his research in the International Economic Review, Journal of Population Economics and others.

Abstract

Entrepreneurship requires creativity and business acumen. Creativity may decline with age, but business skills increase with experience in high level positions. Having too many older workers in society slows entrepreneurship. Not only are older workers less innovative, but more significant is that when older workers occupy key positions they block younger workers from acquiring business skills. A formal theoretical structure is presented and tested using the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data. The results imply that a one-standard deviation decrease in the median age of a country increases the rate of new business formation by 2.5 percentage points, which is about forty percent of the mean rate. Furthermore, older societies have lower rates of entrepreneurship at every age.

Professor Joseph Cheng

Internationally renowned business researcher Professor Joseph L.C. Cheng is the inaugural Michael J Crouch Chair in Innovation at the UNSW Business School.  Before joining UNSW in July 2013, he was Professor of International Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign(UIUC). For the last five years Professor Cheng has been conducting research into the international competitiveness of firms and countries in the Asia-Pacific region. A former Stanford University Visiting Professor and former elected Chair of the International Management Division at the Academy of Management, Professor Chengwas Principal Investigator and Founding Director of theCICCentre for Advanced Study in International Competitivenessat UIUC.  He currently directs the Australian Innovation & Competitiveness Initiative (AICI) at the UNSW Business School.

Abstract

The creation of a new business venture is an important phenomenon yet not all ventures come in the same shape and form. This paper recognizes heterogeneity in entrepreneurship and calls for its incorporation as an analytical variable in future inquiry. Building on the existing entrepreneurship literature, we develop a three-dimensional typology of entrepreneurship that identifies a range of new business ventures with distinct combinations of market, product, and production process innovativeness. We illustrate how recognizing heterogeneity in entrepreneurship via our typology has the potential to help (1) explain conflicting research findings currently existing in the entrepreneurship literature and (2) develop new theoretical insights into the antecedents and consequences of entrepreneurship for a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon. Implications for future research, theory advancement, and public policy on entrepreneurship are discussed, including the use of typological classification to build mid-range theories with greater explanatory power.

Dr. Erik Mooi

Erik Mooi is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Melbourne. His research interests focus on business marketing including topics such as inter-firm contracting, technology licensing, and franchising. He has published his research in the Journal of Marketing, the International Journal of Research in marketing, The Journal of Business Research and others. He is also the author of "A Concise Guide to Market Research", published by Springer.

Abstract

Innovation is a key determinant of company success, and therefore an important topic for scholars and managers alike. While prior empirical studies have typically focused on investigating antecedents and consequences of innovation, we examine whether current process innovation theory offers normative guidance by examining whether and how diverging from these practices affects performance. We adopt a novel analytical approach to understand divergences by matching a substantive set of antecedents of process innovation, using regression, to the measured or observed level of process innovation. We draw on a large, multi-country survey and archival dataset and we find that innovation theory provides key normative guidance as higher expected levels of process innovation correlate with performance. Nevertheless, negative divergences (i.e., less innovation) can be harmful to performance under conditions of high competitive intensity, whereas positive divergences (i.e., more innovation) can be detrimental under high environmental uncertainty. These findings extend the understanding of the innovation-performance relationship and have important implications for strategic management research and practice.

Associate Professor Kwanghui Lim

Kwanghui Lim is an Associate Professor at the Melbourne Business School (MBS) and Associate Director at the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia. He has a B.Eng. degree from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and a Ph.D. in Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He joined MBS in 2006 where he teaches MBA courses on Strategy and Innovation. Prior to joining Melbourne Business School, Kwanghui was an Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore, where he received a university-level prize for teaching excellence in 2003/04 and a faculty-level outstanding educator award in 2004. Kwanghui was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the MIT Sloan School in 2001.

Abstract

Collaborative relationships are fraught with uncertainty for both parties. While past research has shown that in markets with high uncertainty firms favour repeated interactions with partner firms, it remains unclear how such relationships develop in the early stages. To explore this issue, we conduct an exploratory study based on interviews with dyads of firms in the design services market. We show that, when forming new relationships firms seek to reduce uncertainty by focusing on three attributes of their potential partners: design capability (what they can do), character (what they will do) and design process (how they will do it). We also find that firms are willing to collaborate with partners despite asymmetry on these attributes. Our finds help to extend the literature on trade in markets with high uncertainty.

Event Program:

9:30-10:45am

Entrepreneurship:

Dr. Hui Wang -  Peking University

Professor Joe Cheng - Michael J Crouch Chair in Innovation UNSW Business School

10:45-11:00am

Morning tea break

11:00-12:15pm

Innovation:

Dr Erik Mooi – University of Melbourne

Associate Professor Kwanghui Lim – Melbourne Business School

12:15pm

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