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Degree

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Management, 2009.

Abstract

It is a well-accepted consensus in the literature that technological change is a key source of entrepreneurial opportunity. This work investigates the nature of the relationship between opportunity and the business cycle by examining the relationship between technological change and the business cycle. We use the application dates of the top 1% of US patents in terms of citations received and match these to a monthly series of economic expansions and contractions as defined by the NBER for the time period January 1973 to December 1992. The opportunity literature identifies two broad schools of thought; counter-cyclical arguments that suggest economic contractions are fertile times for the emergence of opportunity due to the release of resources previously employed or due to the opportunity cost of redirecting productive resources in times of economic expansion to new projects, and pro-cyclical arguments that suggest that access to financing or access to markets is enhanced during economic expansions thereby facilitating opportunity emergence. We find a strong pro-cyclical relationship for technological change in the private sector but a clear counter-cyclical relationship when considering the public sector. Further, the industries of focus between the two are quite different. If we accept, as Schumpeter argues, that technological change is the most significant source of entrepreneurial opportunity, then the resulting temporal pattern of technological change implies a temporal pattern for the emergence of entrepreneurial opportunity. Implications for both the entrepreneur and government are discussed.

Subject Headings

Economics; Management

Keywords

patent citations; patents; innovation; opportunity; entrepreneurship; business cycles; supply-push; demand-pull

Committee / Advisors

Bo Carlsson (Committee Chair)
Leonard Lynn (Committee Member)
Susan Helper (Committee Member)
Nicola Lacetera (Committee Member)

Pages

147p.

Document number: case1248046746
Permalink: http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1248046746

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