As a child, I was taught to take risks and color outside the lines. Later, I discovered a love of organizations, particularly visionary companies, and what makes them successful. Creativity, innovation and bringing products to market are not linear processes. It’s messy, complex, exhilarating, frustrating—and it can be done successfully when everything falls into place.
Laura B. Cardinal, Ph.D., SmartState® Endowed Chair + Director, Center for Innovation + Commercialization
Our Focus Is Providing South Carolina with a Strategic Innovation Toolkit So Growing and Established Organizations Flourish.
These are the organizations and people that inspire and motivate us.
We are the strategists, the innovators, the doers who make things happen.
Hidden in Plain Sight: SAAI Students Get “On-Track” with Innovation
Railroads are a lot like electricity, Wi-Fi, and the coworker who always remembers to refill the office coffee pot—we rarely appreciate them until something goes wrong. As the students of… (continued)
New Book Published: Research Handbook on Organizational Control, co-edited by Laura B. Cardinal, Markus Kreutzer, and C. Chet Miller
The Research Handbook on Organizational Control, edited by Laura B. Cardinal, Markus Kreutzer, and C. Chet Miller was published by Edward Elgar Publishing (Cheltenham, UK) on May 26, 2026. This… (continued)
BMW Supplier Xchange
Attending the BMW Suppliers Xchange Conference on May 13th was an incredibly valuable experience for our team from the Strategic Innovation Certificate (SIC) graduate program at the University of South… (continued)