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

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