The Image Makers: Demand-Led Standardization for Ecosystem Alignment and Innovation

SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

If We Build It, We Will Come: Strategies for Developing Academic Institutions and the Evolution of Career Choices by Top Talent During Japan’s Industrialization v.2

Columbia Academic Commons (Columbia University) · 2026-03-11

Creating Radical Technologies and Competencies: Revisiting Interorganizational Dynamics in the Nascent Bionic Prosthetic Industry

Organization Science · 2025-09-03 · 2 citations

Why were incumbents able to pioneer and dominate the nascent bionic prosthetic industry, even though entrants represented the majority of the firms investing in this radical technology? To answer this question, our abductive study builds on the novel base principles definition and uses a historical approach to investigate the incubation and early commercialization periods (1974–2018) of bionic prosthetics. We use comprehensive quantitative data on all technological entrants and historical analysis of significant firms to reveal that organizational prehistory affects both the knowledge and intent of technological entrants. Start-ups, incumbents in conventional prosthetics, and established firms in other industries created and integrated subtechnologies into a radical system. Although all firms invested in component technologies, incumbents played a key role as system integrators. Incumbents dominated product commercialization; start-ups captured value through alliances or by being acquired, and established firms in other industries leveraged their knowledge in adjacent value chains as a function of their prior histories and intents. In comparing the virtues of our explanation—the creating radical systems effects—with widely accepted alternative explanations, we develop a more generalized framework of interorganizational dynamics in nascent industries as an endogenous, coevolutionary process that goes beyond explanations that privilege competitive dynamics to also include collaborative dynamics in value creation (and capture). Funding: This paper was funded by the Ed Snider Center for Enterprise and Markets at the University of Maryland, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Strategic Research Foundation. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.16915 .

The Other Half: How does Non-VC Hub Location Affect Startups' Access to Initial Equity Investment?

SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

Does a Theory-of-Value Add Value? Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial with Tanzanian Entrepreneurs

Organization Science · 2025-01-09 · 6 citations

Entrepreneurs making decisions under uncertainty are encouraged to evaluate their initial ideas through hypothesis testing, but entrepreneurial approaches vary in their emphasis on ex-ante theory development prior to collecting evidence. In this paper, we examine whether and how entrepreneurs benefit from adopting an evidence-based approach or a theory-and-evidence-based approach to decision making. We conducted a field experiment with Tanzanian agribusiness entrepreneurs by randomly assigning entrepreneurs to two different training conditions. We find that entrepreneurs in the theory-and-evidence–based condition have higher economic performance during the observation period following the intervention. We conjecture this result stems from differences in the types of changes enacted: entrepreneurs in the theory-and-evidence–based training make more coordinated changes that encompass both core and operational elements of their business models. Funding: This work was supported by the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research [Grant DFs-18-0000000008], the Rockefeller Foundation [Grant 2018 FOD 004], and Ed Snider Center for Enterprise and Markets. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of Maryland, College Park [Project 1634929; original approval February 26, 2021]. A. Camuffo and A. Gambardella acknowledge support from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme [Grant 101021061]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2023.17590 .

CAGE-ING KNOWLEDGE: ENTREPRENEURIAL APPROACHES AS LEARNING TOOLKITS FOR CONSTRUCTION, ACQUISITION, AND GENERATION OF ENTREPRENEURIAL KNOWLEDGE

SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

Unpacking Economic Actors & Action: Heterogeneity of Attributes & Hierarchies of Organizations

Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

Economic action -- the investment of non-trivial resources in an effort to create value in a market place -- is often attributed to an abstract economic actor in strategy and entrepreneurship research. While this stance may be helpful for simplifying the researcher’s focus, we argue that it misrepresents the source of economic action and limits (and potentially distorts) our understanding of the action itself. For example, theorizing has been proposed as a key mechanism for creating economic novelty, yet it is unclear how theorizing might be affected by actors’ capabilities and motivation. Similarly, actions have primarily been examined through a focus on prior capabilities; however, the role of intent and imagination has been under appreciated. Moreover, our theories of entrepreneurial approaches (e.g. theory-based view, lean startup, effectuation) often conceptualize a single decision maker and it is important to understand how these approaches extend to team decision making. Our goal is to bring together leading scholars from these areas to identify and discuss common assumptions, examine their implications for our current understanding of economic action, and highlight opportunities to navigate a more integrated and realistic research agenda. Rents, Rationality, & the Lifecycle of an Idea Author: Jacob David Valentine; University of Maryland College Park Theory-Based Cognition, Combinatorial Salience, and Technology: From Expertise to Experimentation Author: Teppo Felin; Utah State University The Company They Keep: Physicians, Sunshine Regulation And Legitimacy Of Physician-Venture Relations Author: Riitta Katila; Stanford University Author: Jiang Bian; The University of Hong Kong Entrepreneurial Teams and the Theory-Based View Author: Rajshree Agarwal; University of Maryland College Park Author: Robert Joseph Wuebker; The University of Utah Author: Jacob David Valentine; University of Maryland College Park Compensation Dispersion Among Inventive Talents Author: Rajshree Agarwal; University of Maryland College Park Author: Serguey Braguinsky; University of Maryland College Park Author: Yuheng Ding; University of Maryland College Park Author: Jungwon Alexander Son; University of Wisconsin-Madison

Strategists as Experimenters? Integrating Perspectives on Learning by Experimenting

Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

Strategic learning by entrepreneurs and managers has become increasingly characterized as learning by experimenting. However, the concept of experimentation in strategy and entrepreneurship has been used and interpreted in myriad ways over its lifetime. Harking back to Rosenberg (1992), economic experimentation (where managers and entrepreneurs act on their hunches and prior knowledge) is key to technology evolution and economic progress. More recently, the lean startup entrepreneurial approach (Ries, 2011; Contiagini & Levinthal, 2019) and the theory-based view of the firm (Camuffo et al., 2020) has depicted strategists as quasi-scientists who experiment with minimum viable products or develop theories about the world and its potential futures by testing their veracity and sometimes pivoting to new ideas based on the outcomes of those tests. These latter approaches evoke the Popperian notion of the scientific method which focuses on theory falsification through deductive hypothesis testing and statistical inference (Popper, 1959; 1963). However, the Popperian notion of experimentation is limited in both its conception of science and its ability to explain strategic behavior. While some studies have shown that deductive hypothesis testing may provide decision makers with relevant information relative to their predetermined theory, others suggest that experimental behavior may go beyond deductive hypothesis testing and lead to unanticipated knowledge that proves useful for the decision maker. For example, managers and entrepreneurs frequently update their beliefs and rules guiding their strategies after learning by doing (Bingham, Eisenhardt and Furr, 2007). Similarly, economic experimentation is not only a selection mechanism operating across different actors making different bets (Rosenberg, 1992), it also enables the same actor to update their beliefs and pivot their business models (Pillai, Goldfarb & Kirsch, 2020; Valentine, Novelli & Agarwal, 2024). Thus, while some entrepreneurs and strategists may follow a strict deductive framework, others may proceed in abductive or trial-and-error approaches. Open questions then are a) whether alternative approaches to experimentation are more or less “scientific,” and moreover, b) what are the similarities or differences across them? We suggest that there are many types of experiments, with each type prioritizing virtues of informativeness or generativeness. Furthermore, whereas some approaches prioritize learning before doing, others prioritize learning by doing. Our objective in this symposium is to bring together leading scholars who have performed representative work in each of these domains to highlight points of similarity, points of difference, and opportunities to reconcile underlying assumptions regarding strategic experimentation. Balancing Informativeness and Generativeness to Improve Learning in Entrepreneurship Experiments Author: Jacob David Valentine; University of Maryland College Park Author: Nile W. Hatch; Brigham Young University When Should Entrepreneurs Choose Various Modes of Search? Author: Nathan Furr; INSEAD Experimental Learning in the Era of Generative AI Author: Andrea Contigiani; The Ohio State University

If We Build It, We Will Come: Institution Development in Academia and the Evolution of Career Choices by Top Talent During Japan’s Industrialization

National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-02-01

Modern day economies rely on academia-with its focus on generating new knowledge and training future work forces-as a critical complement to industry in contributing to endogenous growth.How well academia performs this role, however, depends on its ability to recruit and retain talented faculty who have lucrative alternative options in industry.Such allocation of talent in academia vs. industry is conditioned by path-dependencies in the evolution of these sectors.We complement existing literature that has focused on factors in mature scientific labor markets by examining the endogenous evolution of academic institutions concurrent with industrialization in Japan during the turn of the 20th century.Our study combines historical methods with estimation of a dynamic occupational choice model and utilizes unique data on the census of university-educated engineers from the first 40 cohorts since the inception of higher technical education in Japan.The historical analysis reveals systematic shaping strategies to build institutions that catered to both monetary and non-monetary preferences.The quantitative estimations uncover the latter were particularly important in academia disproportionately attracting top talent in later cohorts, despite an increasing pay gap with industry.

Creating New Industries: The Generative Role of Heterogeneous Actors

Academy of Management Annals · 2025-04-28 · 3 citations

How nascent industries evolve and contribute to economic growth and societal advancement has long been a central topic for research and practice. In this review, we focus on the generative role of the heterogeneous actors who contribute to industry creation. Integrating robust literature streams spanning management, economics, marketing, and sociology, we highlight how industries emerge from the purposeful action and interplay of firm and non-firm actors. Our synthesis provides an overarching framework wherein we situate individual research articles based on their examination of actor attributes (endowments; identities; inducements) and actions (when to engage; capability development and reconfiguration; modes of interactions). The engagement and attributes of heterogeneous actors and feedback loops across various actions are critical for outcomes at both industry and actor levels. Our article also reveals opportunities for future research: these include a deeper focus on actor attributes to address the imbalance in studies of firm and non-firm actors, expand attention to a broader set of markets, and examine emerging contexts.