Innovation is a key driver of entrepreneurial activity. Innovation from an entrepreneurial perspective is conceptually defined using the complementary views of Austrian economists Kirzner and Schumpeter. Incremental innovation is defined as entrepreneurial activity from Kirzner's perspective -- exploitation of awareness of market disequilibrium which appropriates value: market-sensing, customer-linking. Radical innovation is defined as entrepreneurial activity from Schumpeter's perspective -- exploration as a market-disequilibrium "creative destruction" which creates value: market-making, customer-driving. From a firm's perspective, innovation research in marketing addresses three fundamental questions: What is an innovation? What innovations are most valuable to a firm? How do innovations influence the competitive marketplace? From an entreprenuerial perspective, I address these fundamental questions.
Monte J. Shaffer is a fourth-year Ph.D. student and job market candidate (2011) in the Department of Marketing at Washington State University. Monte is currently working on his marketing dissertation in Entrepreneurial Innovations. Prior to joining Washington State University, Monte received a Bachelor in Mathematics / MBA in Marketing from Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, UT.
Assessing a firm's innovation portfolio is a challenge? Even more difficult is estimating its future value? This paper applies the principles of the Bass model of diffusion of innovation \citep{Bass:1969} to the estimation of forward citations, ``class-match" dampened forward citations, and the newly introduced Patent Rank Scores. The cumulative diffusion will be modeled using a generalized logistic function known as the Richards' curve \citep{Richards:1959}. To estimate the parameters of the the model, the Newton-Raphson method is used. Over 22,000 randomly selected patents from 1976--2008 will be individually modeled, and diffusion patterns will be classified based on the parameters of the model. Valuation of innovation can be objectively assessed, and future valuation can be predicted based on each innovation's specific diffusion pattern.
Patent data is publicly available, serves as a instrument for doing patent-level and firm-level analysis for both private and public firms, and amidst the modern information age, may be the only way to secure intellectual property. Patent counts or forward-citation counts have been traditionally used to measure the innovation portfolio of a firm. Using network analysis, a variation of Google's PageRank algorithm is introduced to the patent citation network to define an objective measure for radical innovation -- ``Patent Rank". Two model types are considered: simple structure and technology ``class-match" using two temporal forms: cumulative network and five-year moving window. All utility patents from 1976--2009 will be analyzed; over 5.6 million patents and 40 million citations are evaluated to produce 332 million Patent Rank scores. Useful distributional properties are considered and these objective scores are compared to a recent subjective survey performed by PBS to assess the question: What are the most radical innovations of the modern era?
"Monte from Montana" was born and raised near Glacier National Park. He is a strong, sober mind that likes to solve problems in order to help people. Following in his father's footsteps, he began teaching high school mathematics (BYU: mathematics with minors in Physics and Spanish). The excitement of the dot-com era led Monte to Monterey California where he became a Senior Software Engineer doing web-application development for an Internet Company. Following the bubble-burst, he returned to BYU (MBA: Marketing Research). Monte is concurrently working toward his Ph.D. in Marketing and a M.S. in Statistics at WSU in Pullman, Washington. Generally, he likes to identify innovative statistical techniques that can help solve marketing problems. Specifically, his interests are in Entrepreneurial Innovation, U.S. Patent Data, and Internet Consumer Behavior. Outside of Marketing, Monte enjoys his family, a good game of basketball, golf, and chess.
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