New Paper: Increasing AI Idea Variance

Mack Institute Research Assistant Lennart Meincke, Wharton Professor Ethan Mollick and Mack Institute Co-Director and Wharton Professor Christian Terwiesch have published the next in Terwiesch’s series of working papers on ChatGPT. The new paper evaluates how LLMs can be used for idea generation and explores methods to increase the novelty,Read More

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

Working Papers

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

Capability-Enhancing Foreign Investments, and Evolution of Corporate Scope In Software Services Offshore Outsourcing: Market Reactions and Implications for Competitive Advantage

Working Papers

How does the stock market react to competitive actions by firms and their rivals? In this study we empirically explore capability-seeking investments by firms from different strategic groups within an industry and examine their impact on rival firms in the competitive context of global software services.Read More

Are ETFs better than Mutual Funds?

Working Papers

I study investors’ trade-off between ETFs and open-ended mutual funds in the presence of idiosyncratic liquidity risk and aggregate uncertainty. Based on a portfolio choice model, I show that ETFs and mutual funds provide liquidity at different maturities.Read More

Implications of Revenue Models and Technology for Content Moderation Strategies

Working Papers

This paper develops a theoretical model to study the economic incentives for a social media platform to moderate user-generated content. We show that a self-interested platform can use content moderation as an effective marketing tool to expand its installed user base, to increase the utility of its users, and to achieve its positioning as a moderate or extreme content platform.Read More

The Peril of Pay Variability: Determinants of Worker Aversion to Variable Compensation in Lower-Wage Jobs

Working Papers

Uber. Upwork. TaskRabbit. The world of work is transforming and my research agenda attempts to identify and explain 1) how work is changing and 2) how these changes affect workers, especially those who are marginalized or vulnerable.Read More

Towards a Causal Theory and Test of Network Effects: Structural Holes, Alliance-Network Externalities, and Organizational Innovation

Working Papers

We investigate whether the effect of network position on innovation is causal or spurious. Although empirical evidence demonstrates that certain structural positions in alliance networks (e.g. structural holes) affect firm innovation, it is hard to disentangle the factors allowing a firm to put itself in a certain position from the innovation outcomes that stem from being in that position.Read More

When Should the Off-grid Sun Shine at Night? Optimum Renewable Generation and Energy Storage Investments

Working Papers

Globally, 1.5 billion people live off the grid, their only access to electricity often limited to operationally-expensive fossil fuel generators. Solar power has risen as a sustainable and less expensive option, but its generation is variable during the day and non-existent at night.Read More

Pricing in Service Platforms: Who Should Set the Prices?

Working Papers

Tolga Dizdarer, PhD Candidate, The Wharton School, Gerry Tsoukalas, Operations, Information & Decisions, The Wharton School, and Gérard Cachon, Operations, Information & Decisions, The Wharton School Abstract: Service platforms like Uber and AirBnb create markets that connect customers with service providers. Platforms provide the medium of interaction and receive commissions fromRead More

Privately Owned Battery Storage: Re-Shaping the Utility Business Case

Working Papers

How can rooftop solar owners capture economic value from investing in battery technologies? Storage adds at least three strategic options for homeowners that previously could only directly consume solar generation and sell any excess instantaneously, thus they traditionally relied on feed-in tariffs or other subsidies.Read More

Friend or Foe: How Social Movements Impact Firm Innovation

Working Papers

We investigate the impact social movements have on firm-level innovation through private politics. We distinguish between contentious private politics, or contentious targeting of firms by activists, and cooperative private politics, when activists engage firms in formal collaborations.Read More

The Effects of Content Ephemerality on Information Processing

Working Papers

Most digital communication platforms store content and allow users to see it multiple times. Despite the benefits that recording content holds for both users and companies, many applications delete it after it was seen by the receiver (i.e., ephemeral communication channels). Read More