Carla Maria do Rosario Costa

Carla Costa is an Assistant Professor at the Engineering and Management Department at Técnico Lisboa and a member of the CEGIST research center.
She holds a Ph.D. in Strategy, Entrepreneurship, and Technological Change from Carnegie Mellon University (USA), an M.Sc. degree in Engineering Policy and Management of Technology from Técnico Lisboa, and a B.S. in Business Administration from ISCTE (Portugal).
Carla spent twelve years in the Netherlands as a lecturer and assistant professor at Maastricht University and Utrecht University, where she taught courses in innovation and entrepreneurship.
Her research examines how entrepreneurship influences industry dynamics within innovative clusters and how embodied knowledge contributes to the emergence of spinoffs. She is also interested in understanding the role of pre-acceleration programs in fostering new venture creation. Carla is actively involved in the international research community while maintaining connections with entrepreneurs.

EDUCATION

Ph.D. in Strategy, Entrepreneurship, and Technological Change (SETChange) – CMU|Portugal Program
Thesis: “Agglomeration vs. Heritage: The molds and plastics industries in Portugal”
Committee: David Hounshell (Chair – CMU), Rui Baptista (IST), Francisco Veloso (Católica Lisbon), and Lee Branstetter (CMU)

RESEARCH, TEACHING, or OTHER INTERESTS

Management of Technology and Innovation, Strategy and Management, Industrial relations, Economics and Econometrics

Scopus Publications

Knowledge inheritance and performance of spinouts
Carla Costa and Rui Baptista
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
AbstractWe investigate the impact of knowledge inheritance by vertical spinouts originating from user and supplier industries on performance. We test whether spinouts from a supplier or user industry perform better than focal industry spinouts and de novo entrants. Using longitudinal micro data for the Portuguese molds and plastics industries we find that vertical user and supplier spinouts perform better in terms of survival (but not in terms of early sales) than focal industry spinouts, and all types of spinouts perform better than de novo entrants. The results suggest that vertical spinouts possess specific knowledge that might be more valuable than that of focal industry spinouts, while spinouts originating from suppliers underperform those originating from users.


What are pre-acceleration programs?
Nitzan Merguei and Carla Costa
Elsevier BV



Drivers of spin-off performance in industry clusters: Embodied knowledge or embedded firms?
Guido Buenstorf and Carla Costa
Elsevier BV



Organizational Heritage and Entrepreneurship: Steven Klepper’s Theories Reflected in the Emergence and Growth of the Plastic Molds Industry in Portugal
Carla Costa and Rui Baptista
Springer International Publishing



A methodological approach to the marketing process in the biotechnology-based companies
Carla Costa, Margarida Fontes, and Manuel V. Heitor
Elsevier BV

RECENT SCHOLAR PUBLICATIONS