Assistant Professor, Stanford University, Dept. of Management Science & Engineering (MS&E)
Contact Information:
Tel: (740) 236-4653
E-mail:
cee [at] stanford.edu
Official Stanford page
Academic CV
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 strategy and technology entrepreneurship. In the broadest sense, I am interested in the "ideas sector" of the economy. I want to find out which individual attributes, strategies and institutional arrangements optimally drive the rate/direction of innovation, 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 on the role of two different but critical factors in shaping entrepreneurial outcomes: individual level career history and the institutional context. My work spans two outcomes in particular: individual decisions to choose high-tech entrepreneurial activities and the strategies and outcomes of the entrepreneurial firms that are established. I am a recipient of the 2007 Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation’s Dissertation Fellowship award.
Prior to returning to school, I worked as a research assistant at the Duke University Medical Center, publishing in medical journals and textbooks on cognition in schizophrenia and fMRI neuro-imaging studies.
Education
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan
School of Management, 2005-2009
Ph.D.,
Behavioral and Policy Sciences Technological Innovation and Entrepreneurship (June 2009)
Duke University, 1998-2002 Durham, North Carolina
B.S., Major: Biological Basis of Behavior (Individualized)
School for International Training - Fall 2000 Study Abroad. North India.
Strategy, Entrepreneurship, Technology Strategy, High Tech Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies
Eesley, Charles. Migration, Culture and Entrepreneurship
Abstract:
This paper examines how different types of social networks constrain and enable the growth of entrepreneurial ventures. In addition, we examine whether the impact of ties varies across institutional contexts. We propose (and test empirically) a link between cultural attitudes towards risk-taking and migration from rural to urban contexts. Migration appears to reduce the stigma of failure and increase risk-taking behavior as well as the creation of more innovative and larger new firms. We use the stricter labor market regulations in China to identify the causal impact of migrating and shifting social networks. We also use the fact that the data come from 2,996 respondents who were admitted from various locations in China to Tsinghua University in Beijing and then were assigned or chose to migrate back to rural areas or to urban areas before founding firms. We compare the impact of different types of social ties with comparable data from 2,067 MIT alumni with comparable educational backgrounds, starting firms over a similar time period and in similar industries. The results indicate a significantly stronger role for entrepreneur-government ties in the less developed institutional environment.
Who has 'The Right Stuff'? Human Capital, Entrepreneurship and Institutional Change in China. (under review) (Appendix).
Abstract:
Our understanding of the connection between institutions and entrepreneurship is limited. Through their impact on barriers to entry and to growth in entrepreneurship, institutions will influence the types of individuals (specifically their level of human capital) who choose to engage in entrepreneurial activities. This paper shows that when barriers to the growth of entrepreneurial firms are reduced, individuals with higher human capital become entrepreneurs. By exploiting a natural experiment – embodied in the 1999 Chinese constitutional amendment – it is possible to implement a differences-in-differences approach to analyze the causal impact of institutional change on entrepreneurship. Unique data were collected through survey responses from 2,966 alumni who graduated from a leading technical university in China between 1947 and 2007. The results show that the greatest increase in the transition to entrepreneurship was generated by individuals belonging to the top quartiles of a human capital distribution.
Eesley, Charles E.; Hsu, David; Roberts, Edward B. Bringing Entrepreneurial Ideas to Life. (under review)
Abstract:
Organizational design in the context of new venture development is particularly challenging due to initially severe resource constraints. Deepening our understanding of differential productivity in the startup resource assembly process is therefore important. We address the twin questions of what assets are important to venture performance, and under what conditions are those assets especially important? We do so by considering initial venture idea assets and founder contracting experience. The resource-based view of the firm stresses developing the right assets, which accords with idea assets. Firm boundary theories of the firm emphasize structuring relationships in the right way given a set of organizational assets, which accords with founder contracting experience. Using unique survey data, we find that neither view by itself is as important as both theories taken together. We therefore advance an integrated perspective by showing that new ventures perform better when they both identify valuable resources and also assemble human assets with expertise in structuring organizational arrangements to commercialize those ideas. An important implication is that organizational resources have a range of potential values, and that realizing the upper range of value capture involves the additional ability to structure organizational relationships.Eesley, Charles E. Entrepreneurial Ventures from Technology-Based Universities: A Cross-National Comparison
Abstract:
We compare U.S. (MIT alumni) and Chinese (Tsinghua Univ. alumni) founders and their entrepreneurial outcomes. We find that
much is similar in terms of the characteristics of entrepreneurs and the
start-up process factors between the MIT and Tsinghua alumni. Nonetheless, there are some relatively
subtle differences that in combination with the differences in the environment
for entrepreneurial firms and the institutional history of China have led to
vastly different outcomes for the entrepreneurial firms from MIT and
Tsinghua. The shorter time frame
in which entrepreneurial activity has been occurring in China resulted in a
younger, smaller set of entrepreneurial firms. Similarly, the younger age of Tsinghua entrepreneurs
contributes to a different mix of idea and team sources (fewer from work
experience) that might also partially explain the differences in firm outcomes. The mix of funding sources and
proportions of firms relying on technological innovation are strikingly
similar. While firm size in terms
of employees is roughly similar, the MIT firms are much larger in terms of
revenues than the Tsinghua firms. It is clear that the broader environment exerts a strong impact on the outcomes of entrepreneurs, their processes, and their firm outcomes.
Eesley, Charles E. What Should Drive an Innovation Strategy?
Abstract:
In contrast to the long
line of literature on venture capital or liquidity constraints and innovation,
the relationship between public R&D expenditures and innovation in
entrepreneurial firms has not been systematically scrutinized. We address this gap in our
understanding through a linked dataset containing records of over 2,400 firms
founded between 1950 and 2007 in the U.S. and in China along with information
on the founders and linked with 25 years of data on macro-economic conditions,
public R&D expenditures and venture capital disbursements at the national
and local levels in each country.
We examine whether, controlling for time trends and country effects,
lagged measures of public R&D or venture capital disbursements have an
impact on the likelihood that a new firm takes an innovation strategy. The results show that public R&D
expenditures in previous years are linked with a significant increase in the
proportion of firms that are using an innovation strategy.
Cutting Your Teeth (with Edward B. Roberts) (under review)
Abstract:
In this paper, we explore whether individuals transfer learning from prior entrepreneurial experiences when they found new firms. We use novel survey data from entrepreneurs to examine performance of startup firms as a measure of outcomes produced by knowledge acquired from prior founding experience. Results indicate substantial performance benefits accruing from even small sets of prior entrepreneurial experience. The paper indicates areas where entrepreneurs show possible learning effects, such as the inclination and/or ability to more quickly go through the entire process of starting a firm, developing it, executing the exit strategy, and recognizing and initiating a new opportunity.
Eesley, Charles E. Entrepreneurship and China: History of Policy Reforms and Institutional Development.
Eesley, Charles E. Institutions and Innovation: A Literature Review of the Impact of Public R&D and Financial Institutions on Firm Innovation.
Eesley, Charles; Lenox, Michael. Secondary Stakeholder Actions and the Selection of Firm Targets. Also Best Paper Proceedings of the 2006 Academy of Management Conference (include only the top 10% of
presented papers)
Eesley, Charles E. Alumni Surveys as a Data Collection Methodology.
Bringing Entrepreneurial Ideas to Life (with David Hsu and Edward B. Roberts)
Who has 'The Right Stuff'? Human Capital, Entrepreneurship and Institutional Change in China.
- World Bank - Entrepreneurship and Growth Conference. Washington, DC. Nov. 19-20th, 2009
- Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Organizational Behavior seminar, Nov. 4th, 2009
- Washington University, Oct. 7, 2009
- National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Productivity Lunch, Fall, 2008.
- Annual CCC Doctoral Colloquium. Carnegie Mellon. April 11-13th, 2008.
- SASE Student Paper Award, Costa Rica, June, 2008.
- Babson Conference on Entrepreneurship Research (BCERC), June, 2008.
- Duke Univ. Fuqua School of Business, Jan. 2008.
- MIT Political Econ Breakfast; Development Lunch, Fall, 2008.
- MIT Finance Lunch, Fall, 2008.
- Georgia Tech Roundtable on Engineering and Entrepreneurship Research. Atlanta, GA. Nov. 2007.
What Should Drive an Innovation Strategy? (with Edward B. Roberts and Delin Yang)
- Strategic Management Society. Washington DC. Oct. 13th, 2009
Cutting Your Teeth (with Edward B. Roberts)
-
West Coast Research Symposium (WCRS) University of Washington. Seattle, WA. Sept. 10-12th, 2009
Academy of Management Annual Meeting. Atlanta, GA. Aug. 11-16th, 2006.
-
MIT Economics Department Theory Group, June, 2006.
Eesley, Charles & Lenox, Michael. Secondary Stakeholder Actions and the Selection of Firm Targets. Academy of Management Annual Meeting. Atlanta, GA. Aug. 11-16th, 2006. Conference Best Paper Proceedings (include only the top 10% of presented papers)
Eesley, Charles & Michael Lenox.Secondary Stakeholder Actions and the Selection of Firm Targets.Institutional Mechanisms of Industry Self-Regulation Conference.Dartmouth, Feb. 24-25th, 2006.
MIT Innovation and Entrepreneurship Seminar Series. Entrepreneurs from Technology-Based Universities: An Empirical First Look (co-presenter with Ed Roberts). Cambridge, MA. September 12, 2005.
Eesley,Charles; Lenox, Michael. Secondary Stakeholders and Firm Self-Regulation. Academy of Management Conference Best Paper Proceedings (include only the top 10% of presented papers), Honolulu, Hawaii. August 9, 2005.
Teaching Experience
MIT Sloan School of Management 15.024 - Applied Economics for Managers, Sloan Fellows class - Teaching Assistant for Thomas Stoker, Summer 2009.
MIT Sloan School of Management 15.354 - Innovation and Entrepreneurship: How to do it, Undergraduate class - Teaching Assistant for James M. Utterback, David J. McGrath Jr. Professor of Management of Innovation, Professor of Engineering Systems Spring 2008.
MIT Sloan School of Management 15.350 - Managing Technological Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Sloan Fellows class - Teaching
Assistant for Edward B. Roberts David Sarnoff Professor of the
Management of Technology; Chair, MIT Entrepreneurship Center
Fall 2007.
Professional and Service Activities
Additional Publications from Prior Experience
·Duke University
Keefe, Richard; Eesley,
Charles. 2009. Neurocognition in Schizophrenia. in Kaplan and Sadock's
Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, Benjamin Sadock, M.D., Virginia A.
Sadock, M.D., and Pedro Ruiz, M.D. Editors. Baltimore, MD: Lippincott,
Williams, & Wilkins.
·Sloan, Frank A.; Eesley, Charles. 2007. Implementing a Public Subsidy for Vaccines. in Pharmaceutical Innovation: Incentives, Competition, and Cost-Benefit Analysis in International Perspective. edited by Frank A. Sloan and Chee-Ruey Hsieh. New York: Cambridge University Press.
·Sloan, Frank A; Eesley, Charles E. 2006. Governments as Insurers in Professional and Hospital Liability Insurance Markets. In William M. Sage and Rogan Kersh, eds., Medical Malpractice and the U.S. Health Care System--New Century, Different Issues. New York: Cambridge University Press.
·Keefe, Richard; Eesley, Charles; Poe, Meg. 2005. Defining A Cognitive Function Decrement in Schizophrenia. Biological Psychiatry, 57:688-691.
·Keefe, Richard; Eesley, Charles. Neurocognitive
Impairments. in American Psychiatry Publishing Textbook of Schizophrenia.
Edited by Jeffrey A. Lieberman, M.D., T. Scott Stroup, M.D., and Diana O.
Perkins, M.D. American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc. 2005.
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/05/0531_grad_winners/index_01.htm
http://localtechwire.com/business/local_tech_wire/biotech/story/1149000/
http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/apr2003/sb20030422_9661_PG2_sb020.htm
http://dukechronicle.com/node/127240
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb_archive/2003/02/01/336859/index.htm
Including a video: http://www.dukestartupchallenge.com/history/2001-2002
Additional Information
- Outside interests include: hiking, biking, reading, Duke basketball, jogging, swimming, cooking, wine, travel, and tennis.
Copyright (c)
Chuck Eesley