108 research outputs found
Inventive Process as a Recombinant Search over Complex Landscape: Evidence from the Disk Drive Industry
Invention, Recombinant search, Complexity, NK Model, Simulation, Interdependence
Leveraging who you know by what you know: Specialization and returns to relational capital
Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144624/1/smj2790_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144624/2/smj2790.pd
Collaborative Benefits and Coordination Costs: Learning and Capability Development in Science
University spin-off's performance: Capabilities and networks of founding teams at creation phase
The extant literature highlights that environmental conditions, during the creation phase, imprint on a start-upâs survival and growth. However, there are few studies that explore the composite nature of a founding teamâs capabilities and networks, developed within this phase, and the contribution made to future performance. This paper uses the distinctive context of university spin-offs, where early stage ventures are fostered by institutional interventions, to analyse the influence that the capabilities and networks of a founding team, at incorporation, have upon the future performance of the spin-off. Based on data from 181 university spin-offs, this paper empirically demonstrates that the entrepreneurial capabilities of a founding team, augmented during the âcreationâ phase, have a positive influence on the performance of a spin-off during the âgrowthâ phase, and that the networks of a founding team indirectly affect a spin-offâs performance through the enhancement of a teamâs entrepreneurial capabilities
The effect of technological complexity on innovation performance, employee entrepreneurship and mobility: three essays
Technological innovation, knowledge diffusion and employee entrepreneurship and mobility are closely related phenomena. Multiple literature streams in strategy, entrepreneurship and technology management focus on explaining them. However, relatively little is known about the micro-level variation in technological tasks as their driver. To improve our understanding of the role technology plays in these phenomena, I examine how the complexity of the technological problems that employees solve affects innovation performance and employees??? choices about entrepreneurship and mobility. In essay 1 I examine whether modeling the innovative process as an iterative and adaptive search of boundedly rational agents is a valid approach. I develop a novel measure of technological complexity and empirically analyze how technological complexity affects innovation performance. In essay 2 I develop a model connecting attributes of technological tasks with the probability of idea rejection within incumbent firms. I show that rejection of profitable ideas within incumbent firms may occur without asymmetric information, incomplete contracts or resource constraints. In essay 3 I look at how technological complexity affects decisions to engage in employee entrepreneurship and mobility within the context of the U.S. semiconductor industry. The dissertation highlights a new driver of innovation patterns, knowledge flows and employee entrepreneurship and mobility with implications for firm performance and competitive dynamics
Performance differentials between diversifying entrants and entrepreneurial start-ups: a complexity approach
We investigate the relationship between firms' entry characteristics and their subsequent performance as contingent on environmental turbulence and stage of industry life cycle by simulating industry as an NKC landscape. Diversifying entrants differ from entrepreneurial start-ups in terms of the complexity of their routines. We posit that diversifying entrants outperform entrepreneurial start-ups when turbulence is high. Further, learning-possible in later industry stages-disproportionately favors entrepreneurial start-ups
Equity Crowdfunding and Access to Capital for User Entrepreneurs: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment
We examine whether equity crowdfunding democratizes access to funding for nontraditional user entrepreneurs. User entrepreneurs start by creating a product to serve their own unmet needs with no expectations of monetary profit, then later decide to commercialize the product through entrepreneurship. In contrast, traditional (producer) entrepreneurs take a more profit-driven path to entrepreneurship and start by identifying an opportunity that has commercial potential. Through a randomized field experiment, we randomly reveal to some investors that a firm producing a product used by musicians is founded by a musician and conceal this founder-related information from other investors. Revealing the information suggests that the firm is a user innovator firm and concealing it suggests that the firm is a traditional producer firm. We find that investors are significantly more interested in the traditional producer firm. Through an additional field experiment, we identify that the bias against user entrepreneurs is statistical (based on a response to limited information) rather than taste based (based on an idiosyncratic dislike). Our findings suggest that user entrepreneurs can mitigate investor bias by displaying signals of quality such as those regarding firm growth and broad product appeal
Using what you know: patented knowledge in incumbent firms and employee entrepreneurship
Prior studies have shown that the acquisition of relevant knowledge by employees in existing firms is associated with the creation of new firms through employee entrepreneruship. Some researchers propose that the transition to entrepreneurship may be explained by established firms undervaluing knowledge created by employees, whereas other scholars maintain that firm strategies may lead to the underutilization of knowledge. We ask the question of which of these drivers is more pronounced as an explanation of employee entrepreneurship and what technological factors matter in this relationship. Analyzing a unique data set, we find that the likelihood of employee entrepreneurship increases with the inventorâs assessment of the value of a patent for an invention developed while at the incumbent firm but dramatically decreases when the invention protected by the patent is commercialized by the firm, licensed to third parties, interdependent with other firmsâ inventions protected by patents, or technologically broad. We also find that conditional on high valuation by the inventor, a matching high valuation by the firm further increases the likelihood of transitioning to entrepreneurship. In combination, we show that a situation when both the inventor and the firm consider the invention valuable but the firm ends up not commercializing the invention is more predictive of employee entrepreneurship than simple differences in assessing the value of the invention. The study refines our understanding of the drivers of entrepreneurship by underscoring the âstrategicâ explanation of employee entrepreneurship
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