Easier decisions for entrepreneurs

Waterloo - Finding ways to help entrepreneurs succeed, where most fail: that’s Moren Lévesque’s challenge.

In Canada, only 50 per cent of new enterprises survive for three years, and by the end of 10 years, only 20 per cent are left standing. As Canada Research Chair in Innovation and Technical Entrepreneurship, with a cross-appointment in the Department of Management Sciences and the Centre for Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology, Lévesque would like to turn those stats around.

Her approach uses mathematical models to help entrepreneurs make more informed business decisions by weighting relevant factors.


Rather than finding an answer, says Lévesque, MCDA
users gain an awareness of “the consequences of
selecting a certain course of action.”

Want to choose a country in which to start or expand a business? Using Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) — an approach that helps assess a range of factors including economic, cultural, legal and political perspectives — decision makers can combine objective measures with their own value judgments. Rather than finding an answer, says Lévesque, MCDA users gain an awareness of “the consequences of selecting a certain course of action.” And the transparency of the decision-making process makes the outcome easier to justify to stakeholders.

Lévesque found her academic niche through a series of serendipitous events that took her from a master’s degree in math to a PhD in operations research to a specialization in entrepreneurship, which does not really exist yet as a clearly defined business discipline. “People are fighting about what is entrepreneurship,” she laughs, “and I’m part of this debate.” Her own definition: “the study of how business opportunities are identified and come to fruition.”

Lévesque was lured to UW by the Canada Research Chair, and she’s glad she accepted. “It’s a fantastic opportunity to come to the technology hotbed of Canada.” The study of entrepreneurship is of great interest to this community, she adds, with people clamouring to know how to take a discovery and bring it to commercialization.

“I have an audience who listen when I teach.”

Source University of Waterloo