Exequiel Hernandez

Entrepreneurial Spawning Across Generations: How Organizational Experience Shapes First-Generation and Second-Generation Immigrant Entrepreneurship

Funded Research Proposal

This project studies how prior work experience shapes who becomes an entrepreneur, when they found companies, and how successful those ventures become. Focusing on first-generation immigrants, second-generation immigrants, and native-born workers in the US, the study compares careers that begin in large technology firms with those that start in early-stage startups. Using employment histories from Revelio Labs data linked with founding outcomes from Pitchbook & Crunchbase, the project sheds light on how different organizational pathways influence entrepreneurial activity and success across immigrant generations.…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

Do Institutional Reforms Perpetuate or Mitigate the Matthew Effect? Intellectual Property Rights and Access to International Alliances

Published Research

We explore how intellectual property rights (IPR), a type of formal institution, affect firms’ access to global alliance networks and their positioning within those networks. We employed a difference-in-difference design to assess the impact of IPR reforms across thirteen countries.…Read More

Networks and Innovation: Accounting for Structural and Institutional Sources of Recombination in Brokerage Triads

Published Research

Research linking interorganizational networks to innovation has focused on spanning structural boundaries as a means of knowledge recombination. Increasingly, firms also partner across institutional boundaries (countries, industries, technologies) in their search for new knowledge.…Read More

The First Step to Successful Innovation? Choosing the Right Partners

A person in a brown jacket and blue shirt against a black background, depicted in a headshot style.

Wharton management professor Exequiel Hernandez searches for the optimal mix of domestic and foreign partners in a firm’s network. The answer depends on what type of innovative solution a firm is trying to produce.…Read More