Evolving and Leading for Innovation Archives

Consumer Behavior and Cryptocurrency Confidence

In our endeavor to grasp the driving forces behind cryptocurrency prices, we have developed the Consumer Cryptocurrency Confidence Index (c3i), derived from a set of questions asked monthly to consumers across the United States. Our analysis has uncovered several initial results and pointed to an extensive, exciting research program on consumer behavior that shapes the cryptocurrency markets. Firstly, we are rigorously validating to what extent the c3i can accurately predict changes in cryptocurrency prices as a leading indicator by exploring whether this relationship is merely correlation or potentially causal. Furthermore, we are investigating if consumer characteristics such as age, gender, and political leanings can enhance the accuracy of our index in predicting cryptocurrency prices. We are also examining if the relationship observed between c3i and cryptocurrency prices extends to broader stock market indices like the S&P…Read More

Algorithmic Governance: How Distributing Decision Rights Can Erode Participation

Algorithms play an increasingly important role in today’s digital economy. An emerging view highlighted the viability of utilizing algorithms as a governance device. With innovations in blockchain infrastructure and smart contracts algorithms, platforms can delegate formal authority to exchange partners and involve them in organizational decision-making processes. While some are optimistic that this governance innovation can bring about a more collaborative and democratic digital economy, this paper highlights potential challenges associated with decentralized governance systems. I argue that decentralized governance shifts the locus of opportunism from platform owners to a body of diffuse exchange partners. Appropriation no longer come…Read More

E-Governance and Digital Infrastructure in India

Philip Nichols, Legal Studies & Business Ethics, The Wharton School Abstract: An in depth, qualitative and descriptive examination of India’s digital infrastructure and the e-governance functions it enables. The research should produce (1) a descriptive white paper, with an intended audience of (a) policymakers in other emerging economies, (b) scholars…Read More

Strategic bootstrapping and startup experimentation

New ventures are grappling with the rising costs of capital (both debt and equity). As a result, investors of high-growth, technology-based startups are shifting focus to companies that can generate immediate cash. That is, investors are prioritizing cash flow positivity over growth. A recent report has documented that high-growth, technology-driven startups that are bootstrapped outperformed those that are VC-backed on both profitability and growth. Yet, the reason for this performance differential is poorly understood given that bootstrapping is an underexplored phenomenon due to the unavailability of large datasets to answer important questions. Through this study, we first seek to build a large, novel dataset that can facilitate research on bootstrapping. In addition, we immediately respond to two important questions pertaining to why bootstrapped startups may be better able to manage the balance between cash flow positivity and growth…Read More

Hiring Dilemmas: Assembling Human Capital in High-Growth Startups

How do high-growth, knowledge-based startups acquire human capital against the backdrop of the challenges and dilemmas that come with rapid organizational expansion? Human capital is a critical resource for these startups, allowing for increased production, knowledge, and resources. However, the dynamic nature of high-growth periods also poses significant challenges. Against the backdrop of a growing firm’s temporal change, these firms face dilemmas in who and when to hire. In my dissertation, am interested in understanding how growing startups attract, motivate, and retain human capital.…Read More

Vertical Integration in the Video Streaming Market

Vertical integration in the video streaming market has become increasingly prevalent in recent years. Notable examples include Amazon’s merger with MGM, Walt Disney’s acquisition of Hulu, and the launch of streaming platforms by various studios such as Paramount and NBCUniversal. Many studios now license most of their shows to their vertically integrated streaming platforms, which has led to consumer complaints about the need for multiple subscriptions to access content that they…Read More

Commercialization and Scaling Strategies of Deeptech Ventures

This study explores the commercialization and growth strategies of deeptech startups. Deeptech or Hardtech start-ups are a unique set of ventures whose offerings are grounded in breakthrough science and/or engineering innovation (MIT report, 2023). They typically span sectors such as the life sciences, clean technology, advanced materials, robotics, chemicals and quantum computing.…Read More

Market Design and Returns to Data in Mobile Advertising

Advertising supports a significant fraction of the internet, enabling free web search and news services. These ads are intermediated by advertising networks, which assign ad slots to potential advertisers through auctions. In this project, we will collaborate with a large mobile advertising intermediation network to investigate (i) to what extent a reduction in available data (e.g., due to Apple’s new privacy policies) lowers the value created by mobile advertising and (ii) whether more decentralized markets are desirable after accounting for the trade-off between this decrease in value and having a more competitive market.…Read More

Exerting Effort to Choose Increases Generosity

Recently in the gifting industry, websites allow consumers to set up cash registries (e.g., honeymoon and baby fund registries) to elicit gifts in different ways. For example, consumers may set up a cash registry that lists a lump sum expense (e.g., $5,000 for a honeymoon). Alternatively, they may set up an itemized registry, that breaks up the total expense into smaller expenses, such as travel, lodging, and activities during the honeymoon.…Read More

Algorithmic Governance: The Case of Decentralized Exchanges on Blockchains

This project studies how algorithmic governance affect economic coordination in the context of blockchain-based organizations. Specifically, the project studies the algorithmic governance structures adopted among decentralized exchange protocols deployed on blockchains. The project documents and develops frameworks to understand variation in the kinds of structures adopted. In addition, the project examines how the adoption of different kinds of governance structures affect the decentralized coordination among individuals.…Read More

Back to the familiar? How attention and rare experiences overcome local search in external technology sourcing.

In this paper, we develop and test a theoretical framework that considers how established firms forming partnerships with startups may be subject to spatial and temporal myopia and how these tendencies are moderated by the established firms’ histories of experiencing essential failures and successes in solving R&D problems. …Read More

Leveraging Analytics to Maximize Innovation

Academics and practitioners will log onto an intuitive user interface and type in features of their own company (e.g., its size and industry). They will immediately be greeted with an “instant meta-analysis” that summarizes decades of academic findings related to the most important predictors of creativity and innovation in organizations.…Read More

The Impact of Healthcare Price Transparency Rules

The US government recently required healthcare price transparency from hospitals and insurers in an attempt to control spiraling healthcare costs. On the one hand, price transparency and online search tools have been very effective in increasing competition for other products in the e-commerce space. On the other hand, healthcare is a complex product, often bought through insurance, which makes it unclear how much transparency will affect realized prices. Further, public disclosure of prices might allow healthcare providers to better negotiate with insurance companies, which might even lead to an increase in healthcare prices. Our project uses a large-scale nationwide dataset of healthcare insurance claims to analyze the potential benefits and impact of these regulations, and inform policymakers and the public about the values and risks of these reforms.…Read More

Examining the Role of Local Boards of Health in Local Health Departments in the United States

Nearly 3,000 local health departments (LHDs) across the United States are tasked with improving, maintaining, and monitoring population health. LHDs are an administrative or service unit of local or state government concerned with health, and carrying out the responsibility for the health of a jurisdiction smaller than a state.…Read More

Strategies For Creating Value in Base of the Pyramid Markets: Evidence From a Field Experiment in India

In contexts with high poverty, impact-driven for-profit firms often take market-based approaches to drive inclusive growth while being financially sustainable. Even with the alignment between “doing well” and “doing good” that these firms supposedly seek to achieve, successful business strategies in these contexts have been associated with breadth of reach (reaching maximum number of beneficiaries) with little or no attention to depth of reach (repeated engagement with each beneficiary). However a focus on breadth alone may lead to tunnel vision when it comes to social impact. This paper draws the distinction between the two approaches and examines their implications for the outcomes for the different actors involved in BoP markets– the organization, its agents and the end beneficiaries. …Read More

Silence Helps Men but Hurts Women: The Differential Gender Effects of Silence in Negotiation

Current literature consistently shows a gender gap in people’s performance in negotiation. In this research, we aim to use a GPT Negotiation Bot to understand whether men and women may be perceived differently when they use silence — a common and important conversation strategy — in negotiation.…Read More

How Corning Leverages Its Organizational Memory to Create New Industries

Rahul Kapoor, Management, The Wharton School Abstract: The objective of this project is to document the history of Gorilla Glass―a material developed by Corning (formerly Corning Glass Works) that enables the touchscreen devices of the 21st Century. Corning started developing the predecessor technologies to Gorilla Glass in the 1960s, discontinued the…Read More

The Placeholder Effect: Using Break Days to Help Form Habits

This research aims to test a novel intervention to help people form healthy habits, such as exercise more. In particular, we will examine how encouraging people to have “placeholders” on their break days, or days off from pursuing their goals, affects their likelihood of reaching their goals.…Read More

Work From Home: Who Gains and Who Does Not?

In this study, considering the benefits and costs of WFM, we consider two questions: (1) who has an incentive to work from home, (2) how is team coherence and work performance impacted when individuals work from home?…Read More

Minority Entrepreneurship and Alternative Opportunities inside Established Organizations

Research has primarily focused on independently owned ventures, but individuals can also engage in startup activities via intrapreneurship—by launching and operating new ventures inside established organizations. We propose that these internal routes of new-venture formation offer a more inclusive pathway for racial minorities than external routes.…Read More