Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot? The Reverse Transfer of Knowledge through Mobility Ties

Published Research

While mobility’s effect on knowledge transfer to firms that hire mobile employees is well-demonstrated, we choose to explore mobility’s effect on knowledge transfer to firms that lose these employees. Focusing on this ‘outbound mobility’ allows us to isolate effects of social mechanisms associated with mobility.Read More

Institutions and the Internationalization of U.S. Venture Capital Firms

Published Research

In recent years, venture capital firms have increasingly turned to foreign countries in search of investment opportunities. The cross-border expansion of venture capital firms presents an interesting case of internationalization, because they are at variance with both conventional portfolio and direct investment models.Read More

Corporate Venture Capital and the Returns to Acquiring Portfolio Companies

Published Research

A prominent motive for corporate venture capital (CVC) is the identification of entrepreneurial-firm acquisition opportunities. Consistent with this view, we find that one of every five startups purchased by 61 top corporate investors from 1987 through 2003 is a venture portfolio company of its acquirer.Read More

Home-Country Networks and Foreign Expansion: Evidence From the Venture Capital Industry

Published Research

We propose that home country network advantages shape firms’ foreign expansion. We argue that a social status advantage is transferable from one market to another as a signal of quality but that a brokerage advantage is more context-specific and difficult to transfer.Read More

Value Creation and Destruction: A Study of the US Medical Devices Industry

Published Research

This dissertation studies firm strategy to gain technological knowledge from external sources in dynamic industries and the performance implications of these strategies. In dynamic industries, firms need to integrate new knowledge, and build new resources and capabilities to maintain competitive advantage.Read More

The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire But Reject Creative Ideas

Published Research

People often reject creative ideas even when espousing creativity as a desired goal. To explain this paradox, we propose that people can hold a bias against creativity that is not necessarily overt, and which is activated when people experience a motivation to reduce uncertainty.Read More

The Internet and Job Search

Published Research

As dot-coms proliferated and at home Internet use skyrocketed, many economists began to speculate on how this new technology would change the labor market. In 2000 Alan Krueger wrote that “The Internet is rapidly changing the way workers search for jobs and employers recruit workers . . . [with] significant implications for unemployment, pay, and productivity.”Read More

Music for a Song: An Empirical Look at Uniform Pricing and Its Alternatives

Published Research

Economists have well-developed theories that challenge the wisdom of the common practice of uniform pricing. With digital music as its context, this paper explores the profit and welfare implications of various alternatives, including song-specific pricing, various forms of bundling, two-part tariffs, nonlinear pricing, and third-degree price discrimination.Read More

Why Do Firms Divest?

Published Research

In this paper, I examine how lower-cost production and new market opportunities influence the divestment decisions of firms. I argue that lower-cost production and new market opportunities in foreign markets can provide a better use of existing firm resources and posit that these opportunities are likely to influence firm divestment of home-country operations.Read More

“Lost” on the Web: Does Web Distribution Stimulate or Depress Television Viewing?

Published Research

In the past few years, YouTube and other sites for sharing video files over the Internet have vaulted from obscurity to places of centrality in the media landscape. The files available at YouTube include a mix of user-generated video and clips from network television shows.Read More