African-American High-Tech Enterprises: Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation for Innovation
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Authors
London, Jeffrey O.
Issue Date
2020-05-13
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
African American , Agent-based modeling , Entrepreneurship , Innovation , Technology innovation , Technology management
Alternative Title
Abstract
African-American high-tech enterprises and innovation are underrepresented in the economy and industrial sector, in comparison to other types of ownership. Understanding the causal relationship underlying an enterprise’s interactions with external entities may increase and sustain the innovation capabilities of a high-tech enterprise. Agent-based modeling provides a computational methodology to visualize the iterative processes that lead to innovation output and the aggregate behavior of the simulated entrepreneurial system consisting of multiple interacting entities and factors. It is not possible even with long-term social longitudinal studies. Furthermore, the model can be readily enhanced with newly discovered interactions. This research focused on creating a socio-technological agent-based model (ABM) for assessing the probability of successful innovation by African-American owned businesses in high-tech dominated industries. A set of autonomous agents characterized the ABM: African-American owned high-tech enterprises, funding institutions, government research and development (R&D) services, research universities, and other enterprises. The framework was created using data from interviews with African-American entrepreneurs and implemented as a NetLogo simulation. A genetic algorithm in R was used for the simulation’s evolutionary behavior. By combining variations of agent attributes, the study created seven real-world simulation scenarios to evaluate the impact of initial capital, university R&D collaboration, government policy support, funding institution support, firm networking, and a combination of these factors on an African-American enterprise (AAE). The simulation results were validated with an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) decision model using expert judgments. The key findings of this study confirmed: initial funding is significant for AAE firms, but it can be offset by higher socio-economic status; collaboration assists entrepreneurs strengthen their core competencies and obtain funding support for both starting up and innovation; university collaboration is essential for innovation and start-ups; government support assists in improving the ratio of AAE to non-African-American enterprise (non-AAE) firms; and easy access to bank loans or venture funding assist in creating equal opportunity for firms with different backgrounds, although this does not necessarily lead to higher success rates.
Description
Citation
J.O. London, "African-American High-Tech Enterprises: Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation for Innovation", Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. of Engineering, Univ. of Bridgeport, Bridgeport, CT, 2020.