Talking about “green technology” gets people excited. It’s thrilling to think that a new wave of inventions and discoveries will revolutionize the way we live, halt the degradation of our planet and conserve resources for future generations. And it’s more than just talk: Investors are committing real dollars.…Read More
The recognition that better use of existing knowledge can enhance performance has spawned substantial interest in the replication of productive knowledge within organizations. An enduring belief is that when expanding by replication, organizations can and should strive to adapt to fit the salient characteristics of new environments.…Read More
Offline retailers face trading area and shelf space constraints, so they offer products tailored to the needs of the majority. Consumers whose preferences are dissimilar to the majority — “preference minorities” — are underserved offline and should be more likely to shop online. The authors use sales data from Diapers.com, the leading U.S. online retailer for baby diapers, to show why geographic variation in preference minority status of target customers explains geographic variation in online sales.…Read More
A novel survey dataset on computed tomography (CT) machine acquisition is used to explore which theories best answer two questions from the decision making literature. First, what determines how much uncertainty a firm has when investing in updated technology? Second, what determines the value of the acquisition? In answering these questions, two theoretical comparisons are conducted.…Read More
We analyze the competitive capacity investment timing decisions of both established firms and start-ups entering new markets which are characterized by a high degree of demand uncertainty. Firms may invest in capacity early (when the market is highly uncertain) or late (when market uncertainty has been resolved), possibly at different costs.…Read More
Organizational research advocates that firms balance exploration and exploitation, yet it acknowledges inherent challenges in reconciling these opposing activities. To overcome these challenges, such research suggests that firms establish organizational separation between exploring and exploiting units or engage in temporal separation whereby they oscillate between exploration and exploitation over time.…Read More
Drawing on and extending prototype theories of creativity and leadership, we theorize that the expression of creative ideas may diminish judgments of leadership potential unless the charismatic leadership prototype is activated in the minds of social perceivers. Study 1 shows creative idea expression is negatively related to perceptions of leadership potential in a sample of employees working in jobs that required creative problem solving.…Read More
Research has not explored the extent to which seeking help from teammates positively relates to a person’s own creativity. This question is important to explore as help seeking is commonly enacted in organizations and may come with reciprocation costs that may also diminish creativity.…Read More
Many firms have introduced Internet-based customer self-service applications such as online payments or brokerage services. Despite high initial sign-up rates, not all customers actually shift their dealings online. We investigate whether the multistage nature of the adoption process (an “adoption funnel”) for such technologies can explain this low take-up.…Read More
University-industry partnerships facilitate socio-economic development by incubating innovations and diffusing entrepreneurial capabilities to create new markets in rural areas. Complexity theory based approaches are used to develop a process model of emergence based on a case study of a leading Indian technical institution involved in creating new technologies and markets.…Read More
A common approach to innovation, parallel search, is to identify a large number of opportunities and then to select a subset for further development, with just a few coming to fruition. One potential weakness with parallel search is that it permits repetition. The same, or a similar, idea might be generated multiple times.…Read More
Consumer reviews may reflect not only perceived quality but also the difference between quality and price (perceived value). In markets where product prices change frequently, these price-influenced reviews may be biased as a signal of product quality when used by consumers possessing no knowledge of historical prices.…Read More
We provide novel empirical tests that can discriminate between these competing theories by assessing whether the models that explain gamblers’ choices in one part of their choice set (betting to win) can also rationalize decisions over a wider choice set, including compound bets in the exacta, quinella, or trifecta pools.…Read More
The movement of personnel between firms has been shown to have important implications for firms, yet there has been little direct investigation of the underlying mechanisms. We propose that in addition to their human capital, mobile individuals carry social capital, affecting the outcomes of the firms they join and leave by altering the patterns of interaction between firms.…Read More
Insight into the growth (or shrinkage) of “knowledge communities” of authors that build on each other’s work can be gained by studying the evolution over time of clusters of documents. We cluster documents based on the documents they cite in common using the Streemer clustering method, which finds cohesive foreground clusters (the knowledge communities) embedded in a diffuse background.…Read More
Cohesive intellectual communities called “schools of thought” can provide powerful benefits to those developing new knowledge, but can also constrain them. We examine how developers of new knowledge position themselves within and between schools of thought, and how this affects their impact.…Read More
A useful level of analysis for the study of innovation may be what we call “knowledge communities” — intellectually cohesive, organic inter-organizational forms. Formal organizations like firms are excellent at promoting cooperation, but knowledge communities are superior at fostering collaboration — the most important process in innovation.…Read More
In a wide variety of settings, organizations generate a number of possible solutions to a problem—ideas—and then select a few for further development. We examine the effectiveness of two group structures for such tasks—the team structure, in which the group works together in time and space, and the hybrid structure, in which individuals first work independently and then work together.…Read More
Companies in a variety of industries (e.g., airlines, hotels, theaters) often use last-minute sales to dispose of unsold capacity. Although this may generate incremental revenues in the short term, the long-term consequences of such a strategy are not immediately obvious.…Read More
What types of relational and institutional mechanisms shape knowledge flows and the upgrading capabilities of emerging-market firms in the face of economic liberalization? We analyze the Argentine autoparts sector to distinguish the relative impact of different types of network relationships on a firm’s process and product upgrading.…Read More
