Associate Professor
Paul Steffens

Biography

Background
Professor Paul Steffens (Associate Professor, School of Management - Faculty of Business) is Deputy Director of  ACE (The Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research. His core areas of expertise are entrepreneurship and diffusion of innovations. Paul has been a lead investigator for research projects totalling more than AUD 1.5 million and has published over fifty academic publications, including journal articles in leading entrepreneurship, marketing and technology management journals.
Previous appointments include Director of the Technology and Innovation Management Centre, University of Queensland, academic positions at University of Queensland and Monash University and visiting positions at University of Kiel, Penn State University and Southern Illinois University. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Honours I) and a PhD in diffusion of innovations, both from the University of Queensland.
Paul has also consulted for a wide variety of both business and public agencies. His clients include Energex, Waitrose (UK), Agribuys (USA), IPAA, Queensland Department of Primary Industries, Monsanto, Bunge, Franklins, Solutions Research and the Meat Research Corporation.
Research interests

• Nascent entrepreneurship


• Diffusion of innovations


• Managing product life cycles


• Managing new product development.


• Managing intellectual property in government

Major Grants

2010: ARC Discovery Grant : $122,500
2007: ARC Linkage Grant : ARC $262,746 + Partners $190,000
2006: ARC Discovery Grant : CAUSEE $455,000
1998: ARC Linage Grant : $653,000
Current research activities

• Nascent Entrepreneurship and Young Firm Development
  Paul is joint chief investigator (with Per Davidsson) on the CAUSEE research program with total finding of over AUD $1 million. The Comprehensive Australian Study of Entrepreneurial Emergence research project, or CAUSEE, is Australia’s largest nascent entrepreneurship research project. The project provides an exciting opportunity to fundamentally improve our understanding of independent entrepreneurship in Australia. It is the largest study of business start-ups ever undertaken in Australia and the only large-scale study to track particular ventures over time. CAUSEE has identified a large sample of approximately 800 emerging (but not yet operating) business start-ups and is tracking them over four years. CAUSEE is focused on following start-up businesses from their inception. The project has also identified a sample of approximately 800 newly established young firms that have commenced trading. In addition, high potential, high growth firms have been sought as a separate sample.
  


• 
  Diffusion of Innovation and the Product Life Cycle
  The primary focus of Paul’s early career research has been the area of aggregate sales modelling, including diffusion models and models of the product life cycle. This research stream has developed from Paul's doctoral research. He has contributed to this area with a number of new models, including models of time varying replacement, multiple purchases and the product life cycle. Since 2006 Paul has been collaborating with colleagues for University of Kiel, Germany on a large scale empirical study that investigates diffusion of electronic products in Germany.