Functional analysis as set forth in the last chapter decomposes a technical system into functional components that do things to advance the system’s purpose and the goals of its designers. Functional analysis in turn can be used to construct value structure maps of technical systems. Such maps...

This paper argues that the sharing economy — through the use of the Internet and real time reputational feedback mechanisms — is providing a solution to the “lemons problem” that many regulations, and regulators, have spent decades attempting to overcome. Section I provides an overview...

We develop a model of entrepreneurial innovation for entry and sale into oligopoliessuitable for welfare analysis. We show that the expected consumer welfare can be higherunder commercialization by sale than under commercialization by entry despite increasedmarket power in the product market....

Most OECD-countries provide financial subsidy programs to stimulate the entry and growth of small entrepreneurial firms. However, the best strategy for innovative entrepreneurs might be to make an early entry to signal innovation quality and overcome asymmetry problems. Thereby, entrepreneurs...

When should entrepreneurs choose to enter the market with a start-up? And when should they sell their invention or business idea? New research on how entrepreneurs decide between entry and sale offers significant insights for policy makers concerned about economic welfare. At first glance, the...

We find that the positive impact of a firm’ own innovations on its own growth is similar in more and less competitive industries. In contrast, the negative impact of rival firms’ innovations on a firm’s growth (creative destruction) is significantly stronger in less competitive industries,...

The purpose of this article is to suggest a (preliminary) taxonomy and research agenda for the topic of “firms, crowds, and innovation” and to provide an introduction to the associated special issue. We specifically discuss how various crowd-related phenomena and practices — for example,...

We study how funding agencies should set budget caps for competitive grants. We show that budget caps influence the researchers' submission strategy and, in particular, whether they steer their project choice towards the agencies' favorite projects, and the level of funds they request. The...