Chuck Eesley

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My research focuses on the influence of the external environment on entrepreneurship. Specifically, I investigate the types of environments that encourage the founding of high growth, technology-based firms. Although I build on previous literature that explains why entrepreneurs are successful on the basis of individual characteristics, network ties, and strategy, my major contribution is to demonstrate that institutions matter. I show that effective institutional change influences who starts firms, not just how many firms are started.

 

Studying the implications of institutional change for entrepreneurship is difficult because it requires that institutions vary while other aspects of the environment remain constant. Thus, I have repeatedly studied entrepreneurship in a single country (China, Japan, and the U.S.) before and after a major institutional change that has intentionally or unintentionally altered the landscape for people who seek to found new firms.

 

My research is divided into three streams: (1) how formal institutions (policies, legal structures and regulations) influence entrepreneurship, (2) how informal institutions (accepted practices and norms) shape entrepreneurial opportunities, (3) how the environments of particular industries influence the success of entrepreneurial teams.

 

Please see my personal page.

Bio:

I am an Assistant Professor at Stanford University in the Department of Management Science and Engineering (MS&E). My research and teaching interests focus on institutions and technology entrepreneurship. I want to find out which individual attributes, strategies and institutional arrangements optimally drive high growth entrepreneurship, and ultimately economic growth. 

In particular, my research focuses on the determinants of high-growth, innovative firm creation across institutional contexts. I examine how the environment influences entrepreneurs and firms. My work spans two outcomes in particular: individual decisions to choose high-tech entrepreneurial activities and the strategies and outcomes of the firms that are established. I received the 2010 Best Dissertation Award in the Business Policy and Strategy Division of the Academy of Management and am recipient of the 2007 Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation’s Dissertation Fellowship award. My work has been generously funded by Sequoia Capital, the Kauffman Foundation, the MIT Entrepreneurship Center and Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP).

I earned my B.S. from Duke University and doctorate from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Last modified Sun, 18 Nov, 2012 at 14:30

Title Author(s) Journal Date
Entrepreneurial Impact: The Role of MIT Roberts, E. B.; Eesley, C. E. 01-2009
Private Environmental Activism and the Selection and Response of Firm Targets Lenox, M. and Eesley, C Journal of Economics & Management Strategy 01-2009
Entrepreneurs from Technology-Based Universities: Evidence from MIT. Hsu, David; Roberts, E.B.; Eesley, Charles. Research Policy 01-2007
Pharmaceutical Innovation: Incentives, Competition, and Cost-Benefit Analysis in International Perspective Frank A. Sloan and Chee-Ruey Hsieh 01-2007
Entrepreneurs from Technology-Based Universities: Evidence from MIT Hsu, D.; Roberts, E.B.; Eesley, C. Research Policy 01-2007
Firm Responses to Secondary Stakeholder Action. Eesley, Charles; Lenox, Michael Strategic Management Journal 11-2006
Firm Responses to Secondary Stakeholder Action Eesley, C.; Lenox, M. Strategic Management Journal 01-2006
Failure IS an Option: Institutional Barriers to Failure and New Firm Performance Eberhart, R. N.; Eesley, C. E.; Eisenhardt, K.
Entrepreneurial Ventures from Technology-Based Universities: A Cross-National Comparison Eesley, C. E.
Entrepreneurship and China: History of Policy Reforms and Institutional Development Eesley, C. E.

● Winner, National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) 2012 Research Fund for International Young Scientists

● Lillie Award, Research Grant. Stanford University, 2011, 2012.
● Kauffman Foundation Dissertation Fellowship Award 2007: Comparison of High-Tech Entrepreneurs from Tsinghua University and MIT
● University of Virginia (UVA) Darden School of Business, Batten Institute Fellow
● Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings: 2005, 2006, 2010, 2012
● IEEE International Technology and Innovation Management, 2011
● The Best Student Paper award from the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics in 2008
● Keynote talk, Inaugural International Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice Relevant to China. Hosted by Lancaster University and Wuhan University. Wuhan, China, July 9th, 2012.
● Keynote Speaker. University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. University - Industry Partnerships: MIT and Stanford, May 30th, 2012.
● MIT Sloan Fellowship, Duke Univ. J.B. Duke Fellowship
● 1st Prize: Duke Startup Challenge
Academy of Management, Strategic Management Society
That entrepreneurship is vital to economic growth is hardly controversial. Yet, relative to the great importance of entrepreneurship in the economy, we know surprisingly little about it.

My research is motivated by the current and future economic importance of high tech entrepreneurs. Their importance will only increase as competition for innovation increases. The challenges faced by entrepreneurs are particularly salient in developing countries yet we know much less about high tech entrepreneurship outside of the United States and Europe. This research seeks to analyze and compare significant patterns and determinants of entrepreneurship in a sample of university alumni. We anticipate an impact for universities, entrepreneurs, policymakers, as well as an academic impact of this research.

The ultimate objective of my research program is to find out which individual attributes, strategies and institutional arrangements optimally drive the rate and determine the direction of innovation, firm performance and ultimately economic growth. The societies that more quickly understand the underlying drivers of entrepreneurship and commercializing innovation will reap benefits in terms of economic well being and quality of life. In pursuing this objective, we seek to better understand two issues of considerable significance for entrepreneurship: the institutional and individual-level factors involved in deciding to become an entrepreneur. In addition, we seek to better understand the factors that shape what type of company is founded (including the impact on the economy and innovation).

Innovation takes place in almost every country and location on the globe. However, we still do not have a clear understanding of why some firms pursue this activity while others in the same industry do not. Since regional and national government leaders perceive innovation to be a driver of economic growth, they are eager to replicate the technology-based entrepreneurial firms characterized by Silicon Valley and the Boston Route 128 areas in the United States. My research is motivated by the current and future economic importance of high tech entrepreneurs. The cha

My other project involves the analysis of a database of 43,000 MIT alumni including over 2,100 entrepreneurs.

My research on firm performance examines individual level factors and idea quality effects on entrepreneurial performance. It is unique in distinguishing effects on different stages of performance, disentangling prior founding experience from underlying ability and again in examining different institutional contexts. My paper entitled "Cutting Your Teeth: Learning from Rare Experiences" with Professor Edward Roberts looks at evidence for improvements in performance due to learning-by-doing in a context of rare, heterogeneous events. This paper investigates whether prior founding experience improves subsequent start-up firm performance. Distinguishing the effects of higher ability individuals selecting into serial entrepreneurship from a learning-by-doing story requires detailed data on each firm started by an entrepreneur, regardless of its success or venture capital funding. I exploit such data from the MIT Founder's Survey (Hsu, Roberts, Eesley 2007) to analyze multiple measures of performance with (and without) individual fixed effects as a control for underlying individual-level factors such as skill or persistence. The results provide evidence consistent with a learning-by-doing story. Next, my paper "Entrepreneurial Ventures from Technology-Based Universities: Evidence from MIT" joint with David Hsu (Wharton) and Edward Roberts (MIT) examines whether individual level factors or idea quality play a bigger role in start-up performance over time. Another paper, "Comparing High Tech Entrepreneurial Ventures from the U.S. and China" (still in progress) will take advantage of the comparable data from the MIT and Tsinghua surveys on individuals with similar educational backgrounds in top engineering schools who are starting firms in very similar industries (dominated by electronics and software). A key question is whether there may be different drivers of performance in each country and whether these may be converging over time or diverging du

I have conducted a survey of Tsinghua University alumni resulting in a database of 3,000 individuals and over 500 entrepreneurs in China.

"Who has 'The Right Stuff'? Human Capital, Entrepreneurship and Institutional Change in China" examines a model distinguishing barriers to entry from barriers to growth. It exploits a natural experiment to identify effects on individuals at different locations on a talent distribution. The paper asks whether the 1999 Chinese Constitutional amendment increased entrepreneurship among those individuals with higher (or lower) levels of human capital. The type of institutional environment that results in higher quality entrepreneurs is a question that has not been systematically explored previously. The results have implications for our theoretical understanding of the interplay of institutional and individual factors in entrepreneurship, as well as important policy implications given the desire of governments to encourage high impact technology entrepreneurship. The difficulty in studying the institutional drivers of changes in the distribution of talent drawn into entrepreneurship is two-fold. First, one needs a context with an exogenous change in institutions. Second, obtaining detailed data on human capital levels for a comparable 'at-risk' set of individuals is difficult. For this study, I collected original data through a survey sent to all alumni of Tsinghua University, (Beijing) including data on graduates from 1947 to 2007, along with interviews in the People's Republic of China during the summer of 2007. This is the first large scale dataset of technically trained Chinese entrepreneurs and the first alumni survey abroad. To study how different institutional environments may differentially impact the propensity for entrepreneurship among more talented individuals, a differences-in-differences approach is implemented. The data include panel data on income along with detailed work history and educational information.