Panels

Where Should We Go With Sustainable and International Entrepreneurship Research?

Panelists: Roy Suddaby, University of Victoria and Becky Reuber, University of Toronto

Moderator: Kristin Brandl, University of Victoria 

Roy Suddaby will focus his talk on sustainable entrepreneurship research and how new areas, such as research on private philanthropic foundations in international development, have emerged. For example, he will discuss the emergence of these foundations into powerful agents of social, political and economic change, with ambitious agendas, such as the improvement of education and health care, the alleviation of poverty, and a host of other charitable activities. While the objectives of the foundations are clearly positive, critics have raised serious concerns about their role in an emerging new global civic society and even question if the “philanthro-capitalism” may be designed to solve the problems of the rich, not the poor. Suddaby will discuss these concerns in his talk and how this novel area of sustainable entrepreneurship research is part of a new trajectory of the field. 

Becky Reuber will take a broader look at international entrepreneurship research and will recap some of the past areas of the field. She will outline the different categories that emerged in the field, i.e. the focus on contexts that impact the perception and pursuit of international opportunities, the dynamic phenomena behind this perception and pursuit, and the actors that pursue international opportunities and their processes. She will talk about the trajectory of the field in recent years and how the field has changed due to current events and business environments. She will conclude with suggestions for promising research directions that could have the potential to connect international entrepreneurship to other fields, such as sustainability.

Global Innovation Systems in An Age of Great Disruptions

Panelists:  David Teece, University of California – Berkeley and Max von Zedtwitz, Copenhagen Business School

Moderator: Ram Mudambi, Temple University

David Teece will be talking about how the COVID-19 pandemic has caused one of the greatest global business and economic disruptions in history. He argues that it will have far-reaching and irreversible effects on global innovation networks. It comes on top of numerous pre-existing problems with regard to China including issues of intellectual property rights and geo-political uncertainties. In response, MNEs from both advanced economies as well as emerging economies like India, Malaysia, Mexico and Brazil are rationalizing their global operations to at least partially decouple from China. After years of moving toward a more “global” identity, MNEs in the coming years are more likely to chart out their strategies with the geopolitics of their home countries in mind.

Max von Zedtwitz will be talking about how the global COVID-19 pandemic on the one hand and political tensions between China, the US, and Russia may add pressures on firm-internal R&D and innovation and possible generally on international R&D and innovation. He will discuss these pressures and resulting influences while using some preliminary data of global R&D flow patterns.  Von Zedtwitz will discuss the criticality of the data and resulting assumptions, based on time considerations, the usual time lag in international R&D of 2-3 years, and the fragmentation of activities to different contexts.

How Are NGOs Advancing Entrepreneurship, Innovation, And Sustainability within Global Value Chains? Where are the Opportunities for Improvement?

Panelists:  Joanne Lebert, Executive Director, Impact, Kevin Telmer, Executive Director, Artisanal Gold Council, and Mathy Stanislaus, Executive Director, Global Battery Association

Moderator: Anthony Goerzen, Queen’s University 

The panellist, Joanne Lebert, Kevin Telmer, and Mathy Stanislaus, will discuss how NGOs are able to advance entrepreneurship, innovation, and sustainability within Global Value Chains. They will debate how the organizations have the potential to advance activities in GVCs to make them more innovative, entrepreneurial, and foremost sustainable. With their practice oriented views and perspectives, novel insights can be gained from the intersection of the private sector, the public sector, and the NGO sector.