Duncan Duke
Johnson School of Management, Cornell University
Making sense of radical exploration: Developing new capabilities while creating new markets

dod3@cornell.edu

Duncan Duke is the BOP-Protocol Co-Director at the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise and a Ph.D. Candidate in Management at Cornell University's Johnson School of Management. His research and teaching revolve around the ways in which firms develop and implement strategies geared towards sustainability. He focuses particularly on processes and practices for co-creating novel businesses in low income communities, grounding his research in extensive field work. Duncan obtained a B.Sc. in biochemistry and natural resource management at Monterrey Tech, where he also completed his MBA. Before moving to the US, Duncan lived for 10 years in the Gulf of California region of Mexico, where he worked as an executive director and faculty for Monterrey Tech and was involved with a variety of NGOs and governmental organizations in addressing regional issues relating to the natural environment, education and economic development.

Making sense of radical exploration: Developing new capabilities while creating new markets

In this paper I explore and describe some of the entrepreneurial and strategy development processes that occur when firms attempt to build novel businesses in locations that do not have established markets for the goods or services to be provided. The firms I study have deployed field teams to design and build businesses from the ground up, in close partnership with potential customers and value chain partners. The open-ended, non-routine processes the business development team engages in when simultaneously trying to construct a new business and create a new market represent a source of variation for evolutionary perspectives on organizations. Understanding how firms are able to house and support these processes also enriches theories of entrepreneurship and creativity.