A Dearth of Exit Strategies

Fallout from the financial crisis could hinder innovation—by limiting options for technology start-ups.

Reading Time: 5 min 

Topics

Permissions and PDF
Photo: 'Sergei Golyshev' (http://www.flickr.com/photos/29225114@N08/2803715962/in/pool-30657799@N00)

Image courtesy of Flickr user Sergei Golyshev.

While governments deliberate responses to the financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath, one important question should not be overlooked: What will be the long-term impact of the crisis on technological innovation? As part of the fallout from the financial crisis, funds for many types of economic activity have become far more scarce—and that includes research and development.

As economists know, innovation is a key driver of economic growth. Any significant decline in the rate of invention would have a much bigger impact on growth over the next 10 to 20 years than whatever few percentage points of GDP we may lose during the next couple of years because of recession. Thus, we need to be concerned about the impact of the financial crisis on the system of innovative activity in the United States and elsewhere.

THE DOWNTURN MANIFESTO

A manager’s guide to surviving—and thriving—in recessionary times

Read more in this special report »

The notion that a recession is problematic for the rate of innovation is a controversial one. No less a figure than economist Joseph Schumpeter welcomed downturns because he thought that they weeded out old processes and products in the economy. Schumpeter’s conception of the innovative process held that successful entrepreneurs are the generators of economically productive ideas and that over time they transform their businesses into larger enterprises. Those larger enterprises, Schumpeter argued, become more conservative and seek to protect their hard-won market positions. To the next generation of entrepreneurs, the established companies represent a barrier to competing successfully in the marketplace. By shaking out less efficient established enterprises, recessions create opportunities for entrepreneurs once again, Schumpeter thought. He coined the phrase “creative destruction” to describe the phenomenon and saw the cycle of boom and bust as necessary for economic progress.

Two Pathways for Entrepreneurial Start-Ups

We are, however, no longer in the economy of the early- to mid-20th century, when Schumpeter wrote. The fact that new ideas must in some sense displace old ones remains true—but, in today’s economy, the mechanisms of entrepreneurial innovation are somewhat different. In particular, entrepreneurship in some critical technology sectors is dependent upon the activities of larger enterprise in new ways. What is troubling is that the financial crisis poses a risk to that relationship.

Topics

Reprint #:

50303

More Like This

Add a comment

You must to post a comment.

First time here? Sign up for a free account: Comment on articles and get access to many more articles.

Comment (1)
jhemsath
I believe that the economic downturn that Schumpeter was referring to would have been predominately structural (secular?) in nature related to harder industries.  For example, if this current crisis had only been driven by an extreme step function increase in energy costs (that would stay high) then there might have been a driver for new technology throwing out the old due to a need to quickly change paths.  At this time, the "crisis" is financial and capital driven and that leads to a whole new challenge which is simply cash or risk based cash doesn't exist so there really isn't an opportunity for simply entrepreneurial Schumpeterian-style innovation regardless if it is high tech or low-tech innovation.

The problem will be somehow to keep the competition energy alive while cooperatively sharing limited venture capital.  I would also think that that capital is either going to come from a university (unlikely), government or government like economic development agencies as the funds for private capital have been(at least from an investment perspective) reduced by 30 - 50%.  That is going to be interesting if it happens at all, but for those groups that can find the balance between cooperation and competition to encourage innovation in a lower risk and lower capital environnment will succeed