Allan Afuah

Associate Professor

My research focuses on the impact of innovation on the ability of firms to create and capture value. It is distinct from other research endeavors in that while they ask, “what is the impact of an innovation on a firm”, I ask, “What is the impact of an innovation on a firm’s co-opetitors (ecosystem), and how does that, in turn, influence its ability to create and capture value?” The ecosystem of co-opetitors includes not only customers, suppliers, complementors and competitors, but also networks (formal and informal), governments and other institutions. This ecosystem approach to researching innovation helps me explore interesting questions in a phenomenon called crowdsourcing. It also helps me explore the seemingly unrelated question of why Africa has been so poor for so long and what can be done to eradicate poverty there.

Africa Index