It is undoubtedly true that southwestern Pennsylvania is home to world-class universities at the forefront of research in medicine, science and information technology.

Yet it is equally true that for many years economic growth and entrepreneurship in our region have languished. That's partly because regional officials have yet to conceive and implement strategies that effectively leverage regional assets and institutions in support of sustained regional economic growth.

Why is this so and what can be done about it?

The failure stems not from a lack of effort -- and plainly, with all of the lip service paid to technology, not from a lack of attention.

In my opinion, our shortcomings stem from two sources: a profound underestimation of the importance of technology entrepreneurship to economic development policy; and a misalignment between the election cycle, which determines the period of time elected representatives have to govern before running for re-election, and the "policy cycle," which represents the gestation period required for sound policies to yield meaningful economic results.

As to the first issue, numerous studies over many decades by such noteworthy thinkers as Joseph Schumpeter, Peter Drucker and Analee Saxenian confirm that a significant portion of innovation in our economy comes not from "big industry" but from university-based innovation, corporate spinoffs and new market entrants.

Dominant companies attain success based on past innovation. They are as likely to fear prospective innovation as they are to embrace it. Such companies maintain sizable investments in a fixed infrastructure supporting established business methods and technologies that have proven to be successful in the past.

Thus the "big industry" paradigm is antithetical to innovation, where the implications are disruptive to the existing industry order. Indeed, as an organization grows, its aversion to risk grows, and it becomes less likely to change core technologies.

Conversely, entrepreneurial former employees often leave dominant companies to exploit new ideas and possibilities that build upon their corporate experiences, but without the constraints accompanying corporate employment. In doing so, they wreak a certain amount of creative havoc in the marketplace and disrupt the established order of things.

This phenomenon of "creative destruction" is a hallmark of American capitalism and has been central to our success as a nation since the beginning.

Similarly, researchers and academics that possess the initiative to pursue commercialization of their work must be supported with an absolute minimum of bureaucracy. If we do not work to support this type of entrepreneurship and anticipate its needs, we risk stagnation as the rate of innovation slows to a crawl.

Therefore, regional economic transformation will be accomplished best through policies that accelerate the rate of innovation through new venture creation and technology transfer rather than through policies that require or anticipate rapid change within dominant organizations.

This is not to imply that large corporations and institutions have no role to play in innovation or economic development. It is merely to say that in the chronology of innovation, they fit better as market followers rather than as leaders, and our economic development policies must acknowledge this fundamental economic fact.

As to the second issue, the dilemma is clear but the solution is far from it.

Elected officials have an orientation toward actions that produce tangible results within their terms of office in order to establish a record on which to seek re-election. On the other hand, even under optimal conditions, technological innovations take much longer to evolve from nascent stage to solid, high-growth commercial opportunities.

So, in the absence of a rational incentive to implement a solid regional foundation for innovation that may not produce immediate economic growth, our politicians will continue to be biased toward shorter-term actions that result in suboptimal allocation of public resources.

It may take more leadership and vision than any single individual may possess -- other than perhaps "the Govinator," aka California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger -- to make the long-term investments that are in the region's best interest.

In the meantime, regional economic development policymakers must begin to think in terms of constructing an ecosystem for entrepreneurs that accelerates innovation and new venture formation. We must raise the level of discourse so that the broader population understands the essential terms of the debate and just how critical it is to regional transformation.

Technology entrepreneurship drives innovation in our regional economy. Innovation drives growth and new job creation. Growth and new job creation are the cornerstones of successful economic development policy. And a successful economic development policy begets wealth creation.

If we fail to support technology entrepreneurship, our region will continue to experience the same net outflows of intellectual, human and economic capital that we have been lamenting for the last 20 years as more proactive regions prosper.