Associate Professor Paul Steffens

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.