Global Competitiveness and Innovation Research Program
At the Stanford Center for Sustainable Development and Global Competitiveness, we’re interested in what makes some firms successful incumbents, able to continuously reinvent themselves and maintain market dominance. We’re also interested in what makes some startups successful disruptors, able to overtake even the most entrenched monopolies. We hypothesize that by understanding these success stories across many countries and cultures, along with their underlying causal factors, we can develop generalizable theories for the creation of firms and ecosystems that promote long-term economic global competitiveness, the growth of modern innovation-based workforces, and sustainable interactions with our natural environments. Thus, we’ve embarked on an ambitious multi-year research program to understand and foster innovation and entrepreneurship/intrapreneurship ecosystems worldwide. We’ll be applying a new framework that builds upon five pillars to create an interconnected innovation ecosystem.
Overview
The average longevity of firms on Standard and Poor’s list of the 500 largest global firms (S&P500) decreased from 33 to 24 years from 1966 to 2016, and is estimated to decrease to 12 years by 2027. [1] This decrease in longevity is an indication of the ever-accelerating rate of disruptive innovation across even the most “stable’ industry sectors. No firm or industry is now “safe” from innovative disruption. Today, every innovative startup is a potential “giant killer.” [2,3,4,5]
At the Stanford Center for Sustainable Development and Global Competitiveness (Stanford SDGC), we’re interested in what makes some firms successful incumbents, able to continuously reinvent themselves and maintain market dominance. We’re also interested in what makes some startups successful disruptors, able to overtake even the most entrenched monopolies. We hypothesize that by understanding these success stories across many countries and cultures, along with their underlying causal factors, we can develop generalizable theories for the creation of firms and ecosystems that promote long-term economic global competitiveness, the growth of modern innovation-based workforces, and sustainable interactions with our natural environments.
Thus, we’ve embarked on an ambitious multi-year research program to understand and foster innovation and entrepreneurship/intrapreneurship ecosystems worldwide. We’ll be applying a new framework that builds upon five pillars to create an interconnected innovation ecosystem. Click here for theSDGC Innovation Research Plan , 创新研究项目介绍.
Interconnected Innovation Ecosystem Framework [6]
Research Program Fellows
While doing so, we’ll be looking to unlock the secrets of success, formalize our findings, and generalize those lessons to a global audience. Leveraging decades of entrepreneurship and innovation education experience at Stanford, enabled by online learning through the Stanford Center for Professional Development, we’re assembling a cadre of international Program Fellows that will actively contribute to the research effort. Specifically Program Fellows will;
- Receive Stanford Center for Professional Development training and certification in the areas of innovation and entrepreneurship
- Participate in additional training from Stanford faculty, researchers, affiliates and graduate students on innovation and entrepreneurship mentorship and coaching methods
- Foster a new innovation and entrepreneurship/intrapreneurship ecosystem in their home city or country leveraging curated Stanford education and research resources
- Quantify the state of innovation and entrepreneurship/intrapreneurship among individuals and at firms in their ecosystem before engaging with them, and again after engagement
- Collaborate with Stanford faculty, researchers, affiliates and graduate students on authorship of case studies and experience summaries of individuals, startups, and firms working in their new ecosystem
Over the course of this multi-year global research program, we will be looking to (i) identify inspirational individuals that will become research Program Fellows, (ii) build a targeted cohort of Fellows that will be our on-the-ground partners in studying the fundamental constituents of successful innovation ecosystems, (iii) support the Program Fellows with access to Stanford research and education resources, (iv) enable Program Fellows to integrate other individuals and firms into their local innovation ecosystem, and (v) empower Program Fellows to scale their ecosystem in order to generalize our and hypotheses and theories underlying the creation of innovative firms and ecosystems.
Multi-year Progression of Program Fellows [6]
Research Team
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Dr. Michael Lepech, Principal Investigator Associate Professor, Associate, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University Co-director, Center for Sustainable Development and Global Competitiveness, Stanford University |
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Dr. Jie Wang, Senior Researcher Executive Director, Center for Sustainable Development and Global Competitiveness, Stanford University |
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Dr. Pedram Mokrian, Senior Researcher
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Michael Lyons, Senior Researcher Adjunct Professor, School of Engineering, Stanford University |
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Kamran Elahian, Program Fellow
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Dehan Yu, PhD Student Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University |
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Fang Yuan, Program Manager Center for Sustainable Development and Global Competitiveness, Stanford University |
Contact
For more information about participating in this research program, please contact Dr. Jie Wang, Executive Director of the Stanford Center for Sustainable Development and Global Competitiveness, or Dr. Pedram Mokrian, Lecturer in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University.
References
[1] Anthony, S. D., Viguerie, S. P., Schwartz, E. I., & Van Landeghem, J. (2018). 2018 Corporate Longevity Forecast: Creative Destruction is Accelerating. Innosight. https://www. innosight. com/insight/creative-destruction.
[2] Schumpeter, J.A. (1975) Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. New York: Harper & Row (Originally published in 1942 by Harper and Brothers), New York.
[3] Betz, F. (1993) Strategic Technology Management. New York: McGraw-Hill.
[4] Hamel, G. (2000) Leading the Revolution. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
[5] Kapoor, R., & Adner, R. (2012). What firms make vs. what they know: how firms' production and knowledge boundaries affect competitive advantage in the face of technological change. Organization Science, 23(5), 1227-1248.
[6] Mokrian, P. (2019) “Innovation Ecosystem Framework” Personal Communication.