Tel: (647) 708-4960
Fax: (416) 946-7811
Curriculum Vitae
keyvan.vakili08@rotman.utoronto.ca

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Strategic Management at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto (2008-present). I also hold an MBA degree and a BSc in Electrical Engineering both from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran.

My research explores how innovation depends on the resolution of tension between collaboration and competition during the innovative process. I am particularly interested in two closely related questions: First, why do competing market participants collaborate on innovation, particularly during the pre-discovery period? My research identifies a shift in R&D direction among non-collaborating partners in response to collaborative agreements, which has not been fully explored in prior studies. In empirical analyses on digital media standards and stem cell science, I investigate this shift and examine how it influences the decision to collaborate, the scope of collaboration, partner choice, and the role that each partner plays in collaboration. Second, I explore how collaboration shapes the type, rate, and impact of innovation in four empirical settings: digital media, stem cell research, nanotechnology, and semiconductors The contribution of each paper on this question seeks to identify competing mechanisms that drive how collaboration may differentially influence the type, rate and impact of innovation. In studies on the formation of the MPEG-2 patent pool and of stem-cell scientific partnerships, I seek to identify the various theoretical mechanisms by exploiting how the formation of collaborative arrangements triggered changes in the innovation strategies of non-collaborators. I further investigate the role of collaboration patterns in shaping the life cycle of underlying technologies in the digital media industry, semiconductors, and stem cell research.

You can find my Rotman profile here.