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Taking Leaps of Faith: Evaluation Criteria and Resource Commitments for Breakthrough Inventions
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Author: Phillip H. Kim, Babson College
Author: Reddi R. Kotha, Singapore Management U.
Author: Sebastian Fourne, Wilfrid Laurier U.
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Breakthrough inventions form the basis of new technological standards, successful business ventures, and improve the well-being of society. However, predicting whether an invention truly has such potential is extremely difficult, and financially backing such innovations is risky. Because they are not fully formed, organizations and their evaluators must take a leap of faith in supporting cutting- edge invention concepts. We develop arguments for how and why evaluators decide to offer resource commitments to potential breakthrough inventions, despite the red flags raised using standard evaluation criteria. We tested our theory on nearly 700 invention evaluation reports written by a university’s technology transfer officers. Our results based on the interaction of standard evaluation criteria (i.e., feasibility and desirability) and the emotion of awe provide clues for when evaluators take a leap of faith. While backing potential breakthroughs increases the variance in outcomes, they are vital for any organization with a pro-social mission. Using the context of the research laboratory, our study insights can be applied to many management situations in which new ideas are assessed for resource commitments.
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Paper is No Longer Available Online: Please contact the author(s).
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Legitimacy seeking practices during international venturing of small life science firms
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Author: Angelika Lindstrand, Stockholm School of Economics
Author: Nurgül Özbek, PhD Researcher
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Life science firms face constraints when seeking their prospect exchange partners’ attention and support to a product or service of an unknown and untested company. Literature broadly suggests attaining legitimacy as a successful attempt of tackling these challenges. However, it provides little in-depth knowledge about the specific practices that these firms employ in their pursuit of attaining legitimacy internationally. We investigate legitimacy seeking practices in case studies of six Swedish small life science firms and identified three groups, namely interacting with an international audience, rendering international legitimacy spillovers, and utilizing symbolic behaviors. We further display insights from our data into the firm-specific factors influencing the cases’ level of engagement in these practices.
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Paper is No Longer Available Online: Please contact the author(s).
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To Learn or to Mis-Learn? Technology Transfer and Firm Innovation
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Author: Aurora Genin, U. of Massachusetts, Amherst
Author: Moren Levesque, York U.
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We investigate the tacit implications of technology transfer on firm innovation performance. We show that in the interorganizational knowledge network, firms achieve higher innovation performance when they have more direct ties with research institutes, but less indirect ties with other firms via these institutes. We explain the mechanisms by combining the theories of organizational learning and knowledge network to illustrate the phenomenon of academia-industry knowledge spillovers. We expound the boundary conditions by examining the contingency effects of firm knowledge heterogeneity. This study yields theoretical and practical implications for technology-driven entrepreneurs aspiring to formulate proper knowledge management strategies.
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Paper is No Longer Available Online: Please contact the author(s).
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Too Much of a Good Thing? The Nonlinear Effect of Dynamic Capabilities on New Venture Survival
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Author: Thomas Ritter, Copenhagen Business School
Author: Achim Walter, U. of Kiel
Author: Monika Sienknecht, CAU U. of Kiel
Author: Nicole Coviello, Wilfrid Laurier U.
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This research conceptualizes and then shows how one type of dynamic capability - network capability - does not always have a positive relationship with the survival of new technology-based ventures. Using data from a survey of 280 new ventures combined with secondary and patent data, we show that although network capability is beneficial at low to intermediate levels, it decreases new venture survival at high levels. The influence of network capability on survival also decreases under conditions of high environmental hostility but no moderation effect is found for environmental dynamism. Our results suggest that investment in dynamic capabilities in new ventures should be optimized, not maximized, for survival. Also, environmental hostility is more relevant than dynamism for entrepreneurs in new ventures to monitor.
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Paper is No Longer Available Online: Please contact the author(s).
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