Evolving and Leading for Innovation Archives

Private Equity Ownership and Human Capital Acquisition Strategy

The private equity industry has grown significantly in the past decades, and this explosive growth has generated much interest on the impact of private equity’s footprint on the economy and the labor market. Using career history data from nearly 11 million employees at 16,137 private equity-backed firms from 2000 to 2024, I find that firms controlled by private equity recruit specialized managerial workforce. Post-deal, newly hired senior executives and middle managers are more likely to have previously worked at a private equity-backed firm. Moreover, they are also more likely to have worked at a firm backed by the same private equity owner. I find evidence that some private equity firms facilitate managerial mobility within their portfolio, creating an “internal” network of senior and middle managers that mirrors the way public corporations have traditionally groomed executives internally. Altogether, my results suggest that private equity firms rely on specialized managerial workforce who are familiar with private equity operations and with a specific owner’s playbook.…Read More

The Hidden Tolls of Reputational Risk: Using Media Sentiment to Detect Threats to Corporate Reputation and Its Financial Impact

Corporate reputation is a vital strategic asset for organizations. Yet, its socially constructed nature has made it challenging for scholars to agree on a precise definition or develop a reliable measurement strategy for it. Historically, scholars have relied on measures that are useful for assessing reputation earned but fail to capture its dynamic nature or identify emerging threats in real time, exposing a critical blind spot in both theory and practice. To address these limitations, I propose Cumulative Abnormal Media Sentiment (CAMS), a novel approach for identifying and analyzing reputational risks and opportunities by tracking abnormal volatility in stakeholder sentiment. To validate this construct, I conduct a quasi-replication of Caroline Flammer’s 2013 event study, extending her analysis of corporate news coverage of environmental events for U.S. publicly traded organizations through 2024. Using this expanded dataset, I measure reputational signals surrounding coverage of eco-friendly and eco-harmful corporate behavior. My analysis reveals a direct relationship between reputational risk from eco-harmful events and stock price volatility. This research offers new insights into the established relationship between reputation and financial performance, while introducing a replicable and adaptable measurement tool for event study analyses, equipping future researchers with a robust framework for examining the dynamic interplay between reputation and financial outcomes.…Read More

Generative AI for Efficient and Equitable Healthcare on a Global Scale

This proposal presents two innovative research projects designed to harness the transformative power of AI to enhance healthcare outcomes. In close collaboration with the Somaliland Ministry of Health and Development (MoHD), the Taiwan International Cooperation Development Fund (ICDF), and Penn researchers, we aim to tackle critical healthcare challenges in Somaliland, one of East Africa’s most impoverished regions. Our main goal is to develop effective and safe AI methodologies to improve healthcare accessibility, quality, and efficiency. These projects will deepen our understanding of how AI can be applied in safety-critical scenarios and resource-constrained environments, facilitating healthcare advancement on a global scale.…Read More

TwoMinds: Understanding How Humans and AI Systems Achieve Mutual Understanding

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly integrated into daily life, understanding how humans and machines achieve mutual understanding has become a crucial scientific challenge. Our research addresses this challenge by developing a digital web platform that studies how humans and AI systems communicate and build shared understanding in real-time. While machines can now model our preferences and predict our behavior, they struggle to genuinely understand human meaning and intention. Our platform will generate novel data about human-AI interaction, with direct implications for improving AI systems and enhancing human-machine collaboration. By integrating insights from psychology, computer science, computational linguistics, and organizational behavior, our work builds an essential bridge between human and artificial minds—a critical need for organizations seeking to effectively deploy AI technology.…Read More

Blessing or Curse? The Impact of Spousal Teams on Startup Hiring: Evidence from Observational Data and a Field Experiment

Gender disparities persist in entrepreneurship, with women facing significant challenges in founding and growing ventures (Gompers et al., 2021; Rocha and van Praag, 2020). Women represent just 20% of founders in the U.S. (Guzman and Kacperczyk, 2019) and tend to underperform relative to men (Ruef et al., 2003; Kim et al., 2006). Prior research attributes this gap to systemic barriers, such as educational and institutional constraints (“leaky pipeline”), and evaluative biases from investors and gatekeepers…Read More

How Posting on Social Media Impacts Goal Persistence

Companies often encourage their customers to share their progress toward personal goals, such as their fitness journey, on social media. In this research, we investigate how doing so impacts motivation. While documenting goal pursuit online may increase motivation through immediate social rewards (likes, comments), accountability, and social support, it could also have no effect of even backfire—especially if people focus on social media engagement rather than the underlying goal, or become discouraged by lower-than-expected feedback. We test these possibilities through a preregistered field experiment (N = 500) in which participants are assigned to either document their goal progress by posting on Instagram or by completing a private survey. Over a three-month period, we measure their gym attendance and social media engagement. The findings of this paper would provide theoretical insight into how social media interacts with goal pursuit and potentially offer practical implications for designing scalable, low-cost interventions to promote goal achievement.…Read More

When Reminders Backfire: How Thinking More (vs. Less) Frequently About an Experience Affects Excitement Over Time

Thinking about a future positive experience can be enjoyable and exciting. However, we suggest that thinking too much about a future positive experience can backfire. In particular, we investigate whether people would become less excited initially when they are reminded more (vs. less often) about a future positive experience. We suggest that people can adapt to the thought of a future experience and thus would become less excited about the experience. We examine how people’s anticipatory enjoyment changes over time and how many (vs. few) reminders affect this trajectory. Further, we will also explore the downstream consequences of many (vs. few) reminders, such as a reduction in enjoyment of the planned activity and a greater likelihood of changing the planned activity.…Read More

Search Strategies in Artificial Intelligence Innovation: Balancing Competition and Commercialization

This study explores how firms’ search strategies shape innovation outcomes in the context of emerging general-purpose technologies (GPTs), with a focus on artificial intelligence (AI). GPTs, defined by their broad applicability and undefined market needs, challenge traditional search theories by requiring firms to balance advancing technological capabilities (supply-side innovation) with identifying practical use cases (demand-side innovation).…Read More

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

A Strategic Multiplexity Perspective on Innovation Diffusion

We apply a strategic multiplexity perspective to analyze how the simultaneous consideration of multiple types of ties in a network can sharpen our understanding of innovation diffusion in that network. While prior research suggests that multiplex ties increase information flow and thereby facilitate innovation uptake in networks, this prediction may not hold when conflicts exist among some of these ties.…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