This award supports the PI and graduate students from Stanford University in a collaboration with Eila Jarvenpaa of the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at the Helsinki University of Technology in Finland. The combined efforts of the German and US groups will focus on how different external and internal forces are changing the role of the universities in developing new entrepreneurial firms. Implications for this dynamic relationship are to be found in many aspects of business development and entrepreneurship in Finland as well as the US. The study will investigate companies that are in the start-up phase as well as in the later stages of development. Scrutiny will be directed to the role of the universities in developing and nurturing these firms and thus contributing to regional development. The collaboration will also examine the creation of social capital conducive to entrepreneurship in Finland and the US.
The project also has an educational objective. The project will allow the graduate students involved to benefit from performing research in another country. They will develop a heightened appreciation of the world around them while also learning important new technical skills.
