The power play between venture capitalists and CEOs shapes startup innovation

Their interests tend to diverge in the later stages, write Haemin Dennis Park and Daniel Tzabba

Exploring the use of patents in a weak institutional environment: the effects of innovation partnerships, firm ownership, and new management practices

Most observations of the patent behavior of firms are derived from institutional environments in which relatively strong protection can be obtained, even if patents per se are imperfect protection mechanisms. As a result, the determinants of a firm's propensity to patent in a weak appropriability regime are still unclear. This paper advances our current understanding of patent behavior by exploring the effects of manufacturing firms' innovation partnerships, foreign ownership, and adoption of new management practices on the likelihood of patenting. Our analysis is based on the responses of firms to questions in the Brazilian Industrial Survey of Technological Innovation (Pintec). The findings presented here indicate that, despite the weaknesses of the patent system, firms engaged in innovation-oriented collaborations are more likely to patent than firms not involved in these partnerships. Additionally, the results reveal that domestic and foreign firms in a weak institutional environment are similar in their inclination to patent. Finally, the empirical exercise shows that when a patent system is characterized by high levels of formalism and low levels of safeguarding against infringements of property rights firms adopt novel management practices as substitutes for patents

When Does Scientist Recruitment Affect Technological Repositioning?

An investigation of the conditions in which the recruitment of technologically distant scientists results in a significant technological repositioning reveals, on the basis of 2,643 biotechnology industry hiring events between 1973 and 1999, that recruitment is positively associated with repositioning. However, the more a firm\u27s innovative productivity depends on one or a few star scientists, the less likely it is that recruitment affects repositioning. This likelihood increases at moderate levels of technological breadth and declines at very high or low levels. These results offer insights into the challenges of developing combinative capabilities by hiring scientific personnel. © Academy of Management Journal

A bridge over troubled water: Replication, integration and extension of the relationship between HRM practices and organizational performance using moderating meta-analysis

Meta-analyses on the relationship between human resource management (HRM) practices, as an aggregate and individually, and organizational performance has yielded mixed results, further fueling the theoretical debate among HRM scholars. To resolve this tension, we conduct a moderating meta-analysis of 89 primary studies to replicate, integrate and extend prior work. Comparing the variance explained by differences in HRM practices versus those explained by contextual and empirical factors indicates that context and research design have a strong influence on the relationship between HRM practices and performance. Despite the voluminous research on this issue, the differences in the relationships of various HRM practices explains only 4% of the variance in performance, whereas, societal context, industry sector and firm size explain 33%, 12% and 8%, respectively. Empirical contingencies including four categories of performance outcomes and four types of participants explain 13% and 9% of the variance in the results, respectively. Thus, our findings provide strong support for the contingency theory. The theoretical and empirical implications for future research in the area are discussed

The effect of social and knowledge interdependencies on employee mobility and entrepreneurship

International audienc

A bridge over troubled water: Replication, integration and extension of the relationship between HRM practices and organizational performance using moderating meta-analysis

Meta-analyses on the relationship between human resource management (HRM) practices, as an aggregate and individually, and organizational performance has yielded mixed results, further fueling the theoretical debate among HRM scholars. To resolve this tension, we conduct a moderating meta-analysis of 89 primary studies to replicate, integrate and extend prior work. Comparing the variance explained by differences in HRM practices versus those explained by contextual and empirical factors indicates that context and research design have a strong influence on the relationship between HRM practices and performance. Despite the voluminous research on this issue, the differences in the relationships of various HRM practices explains only 4% of the variance in performance, whereas, societal context, industry sector and firm size explain 33%, 12% and 8%, respectively. Empirical contingencies including four categories of performance outcomes and four types of participants explain 13% and 9% of the variance in the results, respectively. Thus, our findings provide strong support for the contingency theory. The theoretical and empirical implications for future research in the area are discussed

The differential impact of intra-firm collaboration and technological network centrality on employees' likelihood of leaving the firm

How does an employee's centrality in intra-firm R&D activities affect his/her propensity for outward mobility? Does this proclivity vary by the type of employment the employee seeks: moving to other firms versus founding a new venture? We maintain that to answer these questions we must distinguish between an employee's centrality in the intra-firm collaboration network and his/her centrality in the intra-firm technological recombination network. We utilize the curricula vitae and patent data of corporate inventors at a leading semiconductor company between 1993 and 2012 to test our hypotheses. Contrary to prevailing views, our competing risk model indicates that corporate inventors who are central in the intra-firm collaboration and technological network, and thus have the most opportunities, are less likely to leave the current employer. However, when considering external employment opportunities, their preferences vary. Collaboration central individuals are more likely to start a new venture than to move to another employer. Their skill in developing inter-personal relationships enables them to attract the tangible and intangible resources needed in a new firm. In contrast, inventors whose technological expertise is central to the firm's technology recombination network are more likely to move to another employer than to start a new venture. In an established firm, they can leverage their technological know-how using the resources that a new venture would lack. Our theory highlights the tradeoffs in employees' attempts to take advantage of their internal and external value based on their position within the firm's collaboration and technological networks