Innovation
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Please note the event time has been changed to 10:30AM (PT) to 12:00PM (PT).

 

This is a virtual event. Please click here to register for the talk. 

 

This event is presented in partnership with Global:SF and the State of California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development.
 

U.S.-China economic relations have grown increasingly fraught and competitive.  Even amidst intensifying tensions, however, our two major economies remain intertwined.  While keeping alert to national security concerns, the economic strength of the United States will depend on brokering a productive competition with China, the world’s fastest growing economy.  Precipitous decoupling of trade, investment, and human talent flows between the two nations will inflict unnecessary harm to U.S. economic interests -- and those of California.  

Chinese trade and investments into California have grown exponentially over the last decade.  But they have come under increasing pressure following geopolitical and economic tensions between the two nations, particularly in the science and technology sectors.  This session will explore the role of Chinese economic activity in California in the context of the greater US-Chinese relationship. 

 

Portrait of Ambassador Craig AllenCraig Allen began his tenure in Washington, DC, as the sixth President of the United States-China Business Council, a private, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization representing over 200 American companies doing business with China. Ambassador Allen began his government career in 1985 at the Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration (ITA) where, from 1986 to 1988, he worked as an international economist in ITA’s China Office. In 1988, Allen transferred to the American Institute in Taiwan, where he served as Director of the American Trade Center in Taipei. He returned to the Department of Commerce for a three-year posting at the US Embassy in Beijing as Commercial Attaché in 1992. In 1995, Allen was assigned to the US Embassy in Tokyo where he was promoted to Deputy Senior Commercial Officer in 1998. Allen became a member of the Senior Foreign Service in 1999. Starting from 2000, he served a two-year tour at the National Center for APEC in Seattle where he worked on the APEC Summits in Brunei, China, and Mexico. In 2002, Allen first served as the Senior Commercial Officer in Beijing where he was later promoted to the Minister Counselor rank of the Senior Foreign Service. After a four-year tour in South Africa, Ambassador Allen became Deputy Assistant Secretary for Asia at the US Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration. He later became Deputy Assistant Secretary for China. Ambassador Allen was sworn in as the United States ambassador to Brunei Darussalam on December 19, 2014 where he served until he transitioned to take up his position as President of the US-China Business Council.
 

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Portrait of David Cheng
David Cheng is the chair and managing partner of Nixon Peabody’s China and Asia-Pacific practice. He is qualified in both the United States and Hong Kong. He focuses on cross-border transactions, litigations and investigations, advising on issues ranging from acquisitions, capital financing (initial public offering), intellectual property protection and disputes to fraud, FCPA and SEC investigations. He has a client portfolio from all over the world, including the United States, Middle East, Europe, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, mainland China and Hong Kong.
 

james greenJames Green has worked for over two decades on U.S.-Asia relations. For five years, Green was the Minister Counselor for Trade Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing (2013-2018).  As the senior official in China from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), Green was deeply involved in all aspects of trade negotiations, trade enforcement, and in reducing market access barriers for American entities.  In prior government service, Green worked on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff and at the State Department’s China Desk on bilateral affairs. He also served as the China Director of the White House’s National Security Council.  In the private sector, Green was a senior vice president at the global strategy firm founded by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and was the founding government relations manager at the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, Asia’s largest AmCham.  Currently, Green is a Senior Research Fellow at Georgetown University's Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues and hosts a U.S.-China Dialogue Podcast.  He was most recently named as APARC's inaugural China Policy Fellow
 

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Portrait of Anja Manuel
Anja Manuel is Co-Founder and Principal, along with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, in Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, a strategic consulting firm that helps US companies navigate international markets. She currently serves on two corporate boards: Overseas Shipping Group, Inc., a NYSE listed energy transportation company, and Ripple Labs Inc., a leading blockchain payments company. Manuel also serves on several advisory boards, including Former Governor Brown’s California Export Council. From 2005-2007, she served as an official at the U.S. Department of State, responsible for South Asia Policy. She is a frequent commentator on foreign policy and technology policy, for TV and radio (NBC/MSNBC, Fox Business, BBC, Bloomberg, Charlie Rose, NPR, etc.) and writes for publications ranging from the New York Times, to the Financial Times, Fortune, The Atlantic, and Newsweek, among others. She is the author of the critically acclaimed This Brave New World: India, China and the United States, published by Simon and Schuster in 2016. A graduate of Harvard Law School and Stanford University, Manuel now also lectures and is a Research Affiliate at Stanford University. She is the Director of the Aspen Strategy Group and Aspen Security Forum -- the premier bipartisan forum on foreign policy in the U.S. -- and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

 

 



This Session is part of a larger conference series titled “The New Economy Conference – California’s Place in the New Global Economy”.   The New Economy Conference will broadcast public programs from April 21-May 25 on a weekly basis, designed to inform and identify the impact of COVID-19 on the economic competitiveness and resilience of the State of California.  Topics addressed will include Challenges and Opportunities Post-COVID in California (4/21); the International Dimension (4/28), Investing in the New Economy and Keeping Businesses in California (5/5); Sustainability and Urbanism (5/12); Navigating Chinese Investment, Trade and Technology (5/19); and Where do We Go from Here? (6/09).

 

Via Zoom Webinar. Register at: https://www.globalsf.biz/session-5-nec 

Amb. Craig Allen <br><i>President of US-China Business Council</i><br><br>
David K. Cheng <br><i>Chair and Managing Partner of China & Asia Pacific Practice, Nixon Peabody LLP</i><br><br>
James Green <br><i>Senior Research Fellow, Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues, Georgetown University</i><br><br>
Anja Manuel <br><i>Co-Founder and Principal, Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC</i><br><br>
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This is a virtual event. Please click here to register and generate a link to the talk. 
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Presented by the Stanford China Program and the Stanford Center at Peking University.

Tuesday, April 27 
6:00 pm – 7:15 pm (PST) 
Wednesday, April 28 
9:00 am – 10:15 am (China) 

A large amount of ink has been spilled in the last few years--and even more so since COVID-19--in the U.S. regarding American perceptions of the P.R.C.  Relatively little, however, has been conveyed regarding how China might view the U.S. today.  In this talk, we bring together two eminent professors, Professor Jia Qingguo and Professor Wang Dong, from the School of International Studies, Peking University, to examine how policymakers, professionals, and average citizens in China might perceive the United States and what that might imply for the U.S.-China bilateral relationship.  Dr. Thomas Fingar, Shorenstein APARC Fellow, will moderate the conversation.

This event is part of Shorenstein APARC's spring webinar series.



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Portrait of Thomas Fingar
Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein APARC Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He was the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow from 2010 through 2015 and the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford in 2009. From 2005 through 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Fingar served previously as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2000-01 and 2004-05), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001-03), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994-2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989-94), and chief of the China Division (1986-89). Between 1975 and 1986 he held a number of positions at Stanford University, including senior research associate in the Center for International Security and Arms Control. Fingar's most recent books are Fateful Decisions: Choices that will Shape China’s Future, co-edited with Jean Oi (Stanford, 2020), and From Mandate to Blueprint: Lessons from Intelligence Reform (Stanford University Press, 2021).
 

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Portrait of Jia Qingguo
Jia Qingguo acquired his PhD at the Department of Government, Cornell University. He has been a member of the Standing Committee of the 11th, 12th and 13th National Committees of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), and was elected in March 2013 as a member of the Committee of Foreign Affairs of the 13th CPPCC. He is a professor and doctoral supervisor, and the former Dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University. He is a member of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the China Democratic League and the Director of its Education Committee. He is the Vice Chairman of the Beijing Municipal Committee, Director of the Research Center for International Economic Strategy of China, a member of the Academic Evaluation Committee of the China Foundation for International and Strategic Studies, a member of the Academic Committee of Quarterly Journal of International Politics of Tsinghua University, as well as an adjunct professor at Nankai University and Tongji University. Jia is also a senior researcher of the Hong Kong and Macao Research Institute under the Development Research Center of the State Council. His research mainly focuses on international politics, China-U.S. relations, China’s diplomacy, Cross-Strait relations, China’s rise, and the adjustment of China’s diplomacy. His major publications include: China’s Diplomacy in the 21st Century; Unrealized Reconciliation: China-U.S. Relations in the Early Cold War; and Intractable Cooperation: Sino-U.S. Relations After the Cold War.
 

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Portrait of Wang Dong
Wang Dong obtained his PhD in Politics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is now a full professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of International Studies, Executive Director of the Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding, Vice President of the Office of Humanities and Social Sciences, and Deputy Secretary-General of the American Studies Center (National and Regional Research Base of the Ministry of Education) of Peking University. In addition, he is also the Secretary-General of the Academic Committee of the Pangoal Institution, member of the Steering Committee of the East Asia Security Forum of Western Returned Scholars Association, a member of the Advisory Committee of the Global Times and The Carter Center “Forum for Young Chinese and American Scholars” and a researcher of the Peace in East Asia Program of the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, Sweden. Wang has led major programs of the National Social Science Fund of China, undertaken major projects of the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ministry of Science and Technology, and been funded by the National Social Science Fund of China many times. He was shortlisted for “Munich Young Leader” in 2016 and Beijing “Outstanding Young Scientist” in 2018. He is interested in research on international relations theory, the Cold War, US diplomacy, China-US relations, etc.

Via Zoom Webinar. Register at: https://bit.ly/3rAcwXC

Thomas Fingar <br>Shorenstein APARC Fellow, Stanford University<br><br>
Jia Qingguo (贾庆国) <br>Former Dean and Professor, School of International Studies, Peking University<br><br>
Wang Dong (王栋) <br>Professor, School of International Studies, Peking University; Executive Director, Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding (iGCU), Peking University<br><br>
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Book cover showing a robotic hand holding an older human hand.

Demographic transition, along with the economic and geopolitical re-emergence of Asia, are two of the largest forces shaping the twenty-first century, but little is known about the implications for innovation. The countries of East Asia have some of the oldest age structures on the planet: between now and 2050, the population that is age 65 and older will increase to more than one in four Chinese, and to more than one in three Japanese and Koreans. Other economies with younger populations, like India, face the challenge of fully harnessing the “demographic dividend” from large cohorts in the working ages.

This book delves into how such demographic changes shape the supply of innovation and the demand for specific kinds of innovation in the Asia-Pacific. Social scientists from Asia and the United States offer multidisciplinary perspectives from economics, demography, political science, sociology, and public policy; topics range from the macroeconomic effects of population age structure, to the microeconomics of technology and the labor force, to the broader implications for human well-being. Contributors analyze how demography shapes productivity and the labor supply of older workers, as well as explore the aging population as consumers of technologies and drivers of innovations to meet their own needs, as well as the political economy of spatial development, agglomeration economies, urban-rural contrasts, and differential geographies of aging.

Desk, examination, or review copies can be requested through Stanford University Press.

Table of contents and chapter 1, introduction
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On January 27, 2021, the China Program at Shorenstein APARC hosted Professor Hau L. Lee, The Thoma Professor of Operations, Information & Technology at the Stanford Graduate School of Business for the virtual program “The Pandemic, U.S-China Tensions and Redesigning the Global Supply Chain.” Professor Jean Oi, William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics and director of the APARC China Program, moderated the event.

Professor Lee focused on an important question that has only become more pressing due to the COVID-19 pandemic: How, if at all, should businesses redesign their supply chains? Since the beginning of the pandemic, explains Lee, there has been an increase in calls for “redundancy” in supply chains in order to protect them from the problems they faced early in the pandemic, when China was first hit by shut downs and slowed productivity. Advice has been varied, ranging from the “China Plus One” strategy in which businesses simply add a secondary production location, to completely domesticating supply chains.

Lee warns, however, of the perils of overreaction. There are numerous risks that come along with a fully domestic supply chain, not least the danger of “having all of your eggs in one basket.” Instead, says Lee, businesses should move cautiously and, instead of fully divesting from China, should use the country intelligently. 

Professor Lee’s “In and Out Design” encourages businesses to work from the inside out, securing and strengthening their supply chains by starting at home. Companies must first build “internal supply chain excellence,” after which they can move on to making sure their strategic partners are equally strong and can work to their advantage. Eventually, companies can move on to strengthening the extended value chain and, ultimately, their entire ecosystem. Using strategies like dual response, leveraging “lubricants,” and bolstering capacity-building capabilities, businesses can create a more stable future. 

The session concluded with a fruitful Q&A between Professor Lee and the audience, moderated by Professor Oi.

A video recording of this program is available upon request. Please contact Callista Wells, China Program Coordinator at cvwells@stanford.edu with any inquiries.

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Rebuilding International Institutions Will be Tough but Necessary, Say Stanford Experts Thomas Fingar and Stephen Stedman

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The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted economies and expectations for economic growth and development the world over. But even before the pandemic, Asian economies were reassessing their growth strategies.

In a podcast conversation about the new edited volume Shifting Gears in Innovation Policy: Strategies from Asia, APARC's Korea Program Deputy Director Yong Suk Lee discusses some of the impediments Asian countries face in trying to encourage economic development and entrepreneurship, but also the inherent strengths that could allow innovative strategies take hold and grow in East Asia. Listen to the full conversation below.

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Edited by Lee, Gi-Wook Shin, and Takeo HoshiShifting Gears in Innovation Policy is the first of three volumes resulting from APARC's Stanford Asia-Pacific Innovation project that produces policy research to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in East Asia and the greater Asia-Pacific region.

Lee explains, “Many Asian countries achieved economic growth by importing new technologies from advanced economies like the U.S., using them very effectively, and then expanding exports. But now where East Asia stands, many of these countries have already successfully caught up to the technological frontier of advanced economies, so if they want to maintain growth, there needs to be a shift in their strategies.”

The shift Lee and the other volume authors propose is one towards economic growth that is driven by innovation and entrepreneurship rather than the ‘catch-up’ model that Asian economies have commonly relied on. Unlike startup hubs such as the San Francisco Bay Area of California, Asian countries often lack an entrepreneurial tradition because of antagonistic financial structures and differences in cultural definitions of success. These additional financial and social risks have cast entrepreneurial endeavors in an unattractive light for multiple generations of workers.

But encouraging entrepreneurship and endemic innovation are crucial to maintaining stable economic growth. With rapidly aging populations, greater interconnections in both trade and diplomacy, and transformation in the workforce, workplace, and work itself, effectively adapting development strategies to meet present and future challenges remains a central priority for East Asia policymakers and innovators alike. As Lee advises, “There’s strong infrastructure in East Asia, both physically and digitally, which is a great advantage. But they’re now at a frontier with no trajectory to follow, and there needs to be indigenous growth and continuous innovation in order to not be surpassed by competitors.”

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Shifting Gears in Innovation Policy: Strategies from Asia
'Shifting Gears in Innovation Policy: Strategies from Asia,' is now available.
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Yong Suk Lee explains in the new volume, Shifting Gears in Innovation Policy, that while ‘catch-up’ strategies have been effective in promoting traditional economic growth in Asia, innovative policy tools that foster entrepreneurship will be needed to maintain competitiveness in the future.

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The past decade has witnessed a great digital transformation in China. In 2006, China’s online retail sales were merely 3% of U.S. sales. China now hosts the world’s largest e-commerce retail market with a 40% share of global sales. Mobile pay has taken the country by storm so that even beggars are accepting alms through QR codes. What accounts for the leapfrog development in China’s e-commerce market? What are the larger implications of the rise of this 700-million-user online market? This talk will discuss the institutional foundation of China's giant e-commerce market, as well as its political and economic effects.

This event is part of Shorenstein APARC's winter webinar series "Asian Politics and Policy in a Time of Uncertainty."



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Portrait of Lizhi Liu
Lizhi Liu is an Assistant Professor in the McDonough School of Business and a faculty affiliate of the Department of Government. Her research specializes in the politics of trade, technology and innovation, and the political economy of China. Her work has been published by American Economic Review: Insights and Minnesota Law Review, and has been funded by numerous institutions, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Weiss Family Program Fund, and the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies. She received the 2020 Ronald H. Coase Best Dissertation Award from the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics (SIOE), and the 2019 Best Dissertation Award in the area of Information Technology and Politics by American Political Science Association (APSA). 

Via Zoom Webinar. Register at: https://bit.ly/38yUFdn

Lizhi Liu Assistant Professor, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University
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Cover of the book 'Shifting Gears in Innovation Policy' on the background of an embossed map of Asia.

In the six Asian countries focused on in this book—China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan—high economic growth has been achieved in many industrial sectors, the catch-up phase of growth has ended or is about to end, and technological frontiers have been reached in many industries. These countries can no longer rely on importing or imitating new technology from abroad and expanding imports, and instead have to develop their own innovations to maintain growth. The policy tools they often used to advance "innovation," for the most traditional industrial policies of identifying promising industries and promoting them, will no longer be effective. And indeed, governments in Asia have recently put forward new policies, such as China's push for mass entrepreneurship and innovation.

Domestic conditions in Asian economies have also started to change. Many countries are facing rapidly aging populations and low birth rates: Japan’s population, declining for several years, is the first population decline not caused by war or disease in the modern world; South Korea’s labor force started to shrink in 2018 as well; China’s huge population will start to age, even as a large part of the population remains poor.

Facing these challenges, today Asia is at a turning point. East Asia as a whole has greater real economic output than North America, South and Southeast Asia possess enormous economic potential due to size and resources, and countries within Asia are becoming more connected in both trade and diplomacy. It is at this juncture that the authors of Shifting Gears examine and reassess Asia’s innovation and focus on national innovation strategies and regional cluster policies that can promote entrepreneurship and innovation in the larger Asia-Pacific. Chapters explore how institutions and policies affect incentives for innovation and entrepreneurship; whether Asia's innovation systems are substantially different from those of other countries, and in which ways, and whether there are any promising strategies for promoting innovation.

Desk, examination, or review copies can be requested through Stanford University Press.

Front Matter and Introduction
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Strategies from Asia

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Yong Suk Lee
Gi-Wook Shin
Takeo Hoshi
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Shorenstein APARC's annual overview for the academic year 2019-20 is now available.

Learn about the research, events, and publications produced by the Center's programs over the last twelve months. Feature sections look at how APARC has continued its mission amid COVID-19 restrictions and how our research has been adapted to factor in the impact of the pandemic. Learn about new talent at the Center, including new leadership of the Japan Program and an enhanced focus on South Asia research. Catch up on the Center's policy work, education initiatives, events, and outreach.

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Yong Suk Lee and Charles Eesley examine how university entrepreneurship programs affect entrepreneurial activity using a unique entrepreneurship‐focused survey of Stanford alumni. OLS regressions find a positive relationship between program participation and entrepreneurship activities. However, endogeneity hinders causal interpretation. They utilize the fact that the entrepreneurship programs were implemented at the school level.

Using the introduction of each school's program as an instrument for program participation, they find that the Business School program has a negative to zero impact on entrepreneurship rates. Participation in the Engineering School program has no impact on entrepreneurship rates. However, the Business School initiative decreases startup failure and increases firm revenue. University entrepreneurship programs may not increase entrepreneurship rates, but help students better identify their potential as entrepreneurs and improve the quality of entrepreneurship.

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Strategic Management Journal
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Yong Suk Lee
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Noa Ronkin
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Entrepreneurship classes and programs in colleges around the world have proliferated over the last quarter of a century, yet the literature examining the impacts and effectiveness of such initiatives is still relatively sparse and limited. Do these initiatives make a difference in the long-term entrepreneurial activity and success of their students and alumni?

Yong Suk Lee, SK Center Fellow and APARC’s Korea Program deputy director, and Charles Eesley, an associate professor and W.M. Keck Foundation Faculty Scholar at Stanford’s Department of Management Science and Engineering, have been collaborating on research that aims to fill in some of the information gaps in assessing the efficacy of entrepreneurship education programs.

In a new article published in Strategic Management Journal, Lee and Eesley examine the entrepreneurship consequences of Stanford University’s two major entrepreneurship education programs that were founded in the mid-1990s. Their findings are sobering but offer lessons for improving such efforts. Lee provides a synopsis of their findings in the video below.

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Using a unique entrepreneurship-focused survey of Stanford alumni, Lee and Eesley investigated how the Stanford Center for Entrepreneurial Studies (CES) at the Business School and the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP) at the Engineering School affect entrepreneurial activity. They administered the survey to a well-defined population of comparable individuals from multiple industries, in total generating 27,783 responses. Respondents reported information on their entrepreneurial status, participation in angel investing and venture capital, and on the founding, duration, and success of start-up ventures. Respondents also indicated to what degree, if any, they had participated in the CES or STVP programs.

The survey results reveal that overall participation in the Stanford Business School CES had a negative to zero impact on entrepreneurship rates and participation in the Engineering School STVP had no impact on entrepreneurship rates. However, the data suggests that participation in the Business School initiative decreased startup failure and increased firm revenue in the long-term. “University entrepreneurship programs may not increase entrepreneurship rates,” Lee and Eesley conclude, “but help students better identify their potential as entrepreneurs and improve the quality of entrepreneurship.”

These findings provide important context to broader questions about entrepreneurship development and incubation, such as whether entrepreneurship is an intrinsic or acquired trait, and as such, whether firms should seek to develop entrepreneurial capabilities internally or acquire them from external sources. This question equally concerns universities and the strategies institutions of higher education employ to foster entrepreneurial talent.

Lee and Eesley note that it is important to take into account variation in entrepreneurship training programs in course content, emphasis, and other dimensions. Their research suggests that general entrepreneurship education that targets a broader spectrum of startups, rather than one that solely focuses on technology startups, may be more effective in reducing the uncertainty in entrepreneurial ability or improving startup performance.

These findings may generalize to other samples of selective-admission college-educated alumni, although there is certainly need for future work that explores the effects of entrepreneurship education in different institutional environments.

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A study by Yong Suk Lee, the deputy director of APARC’s Korea Program, and Management Science and Engineering professor Charles Eesley investigates the efficacy of two major Stanford entrepreneurship education initiatives, suggesting they may not increase entrepreneurial activity.

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