Ta Wei Chuang

Ta Wei Chuang is a PhD Candidate in Strategic Management at Purdue University's Mitch Daniels School of Business. His research focuses on competitive strategy, innovation, and inter-organizational collaboration, with a particular interest in how firms respond to and engage with technological disruption. His primary project examines alliance formation between incumbent biopharmaceutical firms and biotechnology startups, studying how network prominence and disruptive innovation jointly shape collaboration decisions. A second stream investigates the evolving role of cloud service providers like AWS and Google in corporate venture capital, asking whether incumbents’ resources represent a new and distinct form of strategic investment that influences startup funding and outcomes. His most recent project develops a theoretical framework for the optimal timing of open-source adoption, arguing that governance capacity constrains a firm's ability to convert external contributions into durable product improvements. Prior to his doctoral studies, Ta Wei held engineering roles at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), ConocoPhillips, and Gogoro, giving him direct exposure to the industrial and technological dynamics that motivate his academic work. He holds an MS in Law from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and an MS in Industrial Engineering from Texas A&M University.