IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orstsc/v6y2021i4p385-411.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Leveraging Private Enterprise: Incubation of New Industries to Address the Public Sector’s Mission-Oriented Grand Challenges

Author

Listed:
  • Rajshree Agarwal

    (Management and Organization Department, Robert H. School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742)

  • Seojin Kim

    (Management and Organization Department, Robert H. School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742)

  • Mahka Moeen

    (Strategy and Entrepreneurship Department, Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599)

Abstract

We examine how mission-oriented grand challenges—formed to address the public sector’s unmet needs through development of new technologies and products for high potential impact—originate and catalyze industry incubation. Our analysis of six prominent cases identifies the incubation process, consisting of identification of unmet needs as a grand challenge, championing and articulation of a mission, leverage of private enterprise, and success or failure of the mission for subsequent industry emergence. The resulting conceptual model highlights key similarities and differences of industry incubation stemming from the public sector’s mission-oriented grand challenges relative to industries triggered by scientific discoveries or unmet user needs where the public sector is not as salient. The analysis reveals successful outcomes are associated with the public sector’s goal setting and carrying out “market functions” pertaining to selection, coordination, and knowledge sharing. We also provide cautions and caveats regarding fault lines that may arise in public-private partnerships.

Suggested Citation

  • Rajshree Agarwal & Seojin Kim & Mahka Moeen, 2021. "Leveraging Private Enterprise: Incubation of New Industries to Address the Public Sector’s Mission-Oriented Grand Challenges," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 6(4), pages 385-411, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orstsc:v:6:y:2021:i:4:p:385-411
    DOI: 10.1287/stsc.2021.0137
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/stsc.2021.0137
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/stsc.2021.0137?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orstsc:v:6:y:2021:i:4:p:385-411. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.