Business School

Entrepreneurship and innovation

Entrepreneurship is concerned with business founding and growth, and with the individuals and teams who create and grow organisations. Because small and medium-sized enterprises are vital to the New Zealand economy, the department’s researchers are looking closely at what makes them successful.

They are also examining the factors that foster innovation and enable organisations to renew themselves over time. Management and international business researchers have strong links to The ICEHOUSE, New Zealand’s leading business-growth centre, established in 2001 by the School and its partners.

Research in these areas encompasses the following domains:

Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial behaviour
How and why entrepreneurs perceive and pursue market opportunities within New Zealand and internationally.
Family business dynamics
The ways in which family firms in New Zealand face and deal with succession and conflict, and maintain entrepreneurial momentum.
Knowledge management
How firms organise and develop knowledge-creation and knowledge-sharing processes.
Management of research and development and research commercialisation
The characteristics of research processes and of R&D-based organisations.
Innovation in larger corporations
How larger firms organise for growth and renewal as well as efficiency.