George Mason University’s Lei Gao and his co-researchers—Macquarie University’s Jianlei Han, Zheyao Pan, and Huixuan Zhang—collected birthplace data on 1,777 U.S.-born CEOs and determined how many decades each leader’s hometown had spent on or near the frontier during the country’s westward expansion. Examining accounting and patent databases, they found that firms led by CEOs from longtime frontier counties were awarded more patents than other firms—and those patents were cited more frequently and had greater value in the marketplace. The conclusion: Firms led by CEOs from former U.S. frontier areas are awarded more patents.
A version of this article appeared in the July–August 2024 issue of Harvard Business Review.
