Technology Entrepreneurship & Institutions

Overview

Until the 1980’s many regions sought to promote economic well-being by encouraging large employers to locate in their area. More recently, regions around the world have sought to create regional growth and social value through aggressively facilitating technology entrepreneurship. Experience indicates that there is likely no single recipe of policy prescriptions and institutional features that will work equally well for all contexts, and this suggests value in understanding the deeper processes that shape technology entrepreneurship.

This research project headed by a cross-university team of faculty within the Initiative for Studies in Technology Entrepreneurship (“INSITE”) and the Agricultural and Applied Economics Department at UW-Madison tackles two specific questions about world-wide efforts to create value through technology entrepreneurship:

• How does institutional context drive the extent and type of technology entrepreneurship?
• How does the pursuit of technology entrepreneurship itself shape the institutional context in which it unfolds?

Key themes to be examined will include:

• The impact of non-commercial motivations for creating and sharing inventions
• The role of flexibility and interpretation as a condition for flourishing technology entrepreneurship
• Types of unanticipated positive and negative outcomes of efforts to promote technology entrepreneurship

A list of upcoming events may be found on this site .

Researcher Community

Among the lead faculty for this research project are:

Anne Miner, coPrincipal Investigator & Ford Motor Company Distinguished Professor of Management and Human Resources, School of Business

Brad Barham, co-Principal Investigator and Chair, Department of Agricultural & Applied Economics, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Sanjay Jain, Assistant Professor, Management & Human Resources, School of Business

Masako Ueda, Assistant Professor, Finance, School of Business

Gordon Smith, Professor, Law School

Gerry George, Assistant Professor, Management & Human Resources, School of Business

Jonathan Eckhardt, Assistant Professor, Management & Human Resources, School of Business

Jeremy Foltz, Assistant Professor, Agricultural & Applied Economics, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

For more information on the faculty listed above and others who research entrepreneurship, technology and other related subjects at UW-Madison, please visit our research section or read about the research interests of the people behind INSITE.

Institutional Partners

INSITE provides a forum for researchers throughout the UW-Madison community to make important connections and to collaborate on essential research questions.

For an overview of this broader tapestry of institutional partners within the university and the community, please look here.

INSITE and others would like to especially recognize the World Affairs and Global Economy Center for its support of this research and education on campus along with key centers and partners, including Agricultural & Applied Economics, the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship, the Erdman Center for Operations and Technology Management and the Strategic Management in the Life and Engineering Sciences program.

Resources

For a list of resources of interest to academic researchers, entrepreneurs and others, please visit our resources section.