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2008-2009 Seminar Series
Seminar 1
October 24, 2008: Riita Katila - Stanford University, Management Science and Engineering
Location/Time: SB 117, 12:00pm - 1:30 pm
Speaker Bio: Riitta Katila is an Assistant Professor of Management Science & Engineering at Stanford University, and a faculty member at the Stanford Technology Ventures Program. Her research focuses on technology strategy and organizational evolution. Her work has appeared in the Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Strategic Management Journal, Research Policy and other outlets. She was the recipient of the Best Dissertation Award from the TIM division of the Academy of Management, the INFORMS Technology Management Best Dissertation Award, and the Best Symposium Award by the OMT Division of the Academy of Management. She serves on the editorial boards of Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, and Strategic Organization. She is an Alfred P. Sloan Industry Studies Fellow (2007-2009), and was selected as the Strategic Management Society’s Emerging Scholar of the Year in 2008.
Seminar Topic: Effects of timing on product innovation: the value of not being in synch
Abstract: This paper investigates how firms search for new products. While prior work takes a firm-centric view, we study how the firm's search depends on that of its competitors. Drawing on organizational learning theory, we argue and find that search timing relative to competitors matters. Two seemingly contradictory views are tested: that competitors take away the exclusivity of search and therefore suppress innovation, or, in contrast, sharpen and validate the focal firm's search and thus promote innovation.
Our analysis of 15 years of longitudinal data on 124 Japanese, European, and U.S. industrial automation organizations reconciles these views. In particular, firms introduce more new products if they search after their competitors, and they introduce innovative new products if they search ahead of competitors. Interestingly, the most innovative firms combine these two out-of-sync approaches, but avoid searching in sync.
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Seminar 2
November 6th 2008 : Jason Dedrick- UC Irvine, CRITO
Location/Time: SB 117, 12:00pm - 1:30 pm
Seminar Topic: Who Profits from Innovation in Global Value Chains? A Study of the iPod and Notebook PCs
Speaker Bio: Jason Dedrick is Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations (CRITO), at the University of California, Irvine. His research interests include economic development, industrial policy, technology diffusion, and the globalization of the computer industry. He holds a Ph.D. in Management from the University of California, Irvine.
Dr. Dedrick's current work is focused on the international diffusion of computer production and use. He is particularly interested in the environmental and policy factors influencing the patterns of diffusion in individual countries and globally. He has done earlier work on the computer sector in Mexico, and has been working on twelve Asia-Pacific countries for the past five years.
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Seminar 3
January 16th 2009: Lori Rosenkopf- Wharton
Location/Time: SB 117, 12:00pm - 1:30 pm
Seminar Topic: Balancing exploration and exploitation in more than one domain
Abstract: Organizational research advocates that firms balance exploration and exploitation yet acknowledges inherent challenges in reconciling these opposing activities. To overcome these challenges, such research suggests that firms establish organizational separation between exploring and exploiting units or engage in temporal separation whereby they oscillate between exploration and exploitation over time. Nevertheless, these approaches entail resource allocation tradeoffs and conflicting organizational routines, which may undermine organizational performance as firms seek to balance exploration and exploitation within a discrete field of organizational activity (i.e., domain). We posit that firms can overcome such impediments and enhance their performance if they explore in one domain while exploiting in another. Studying the alliance portfolios of software firms, we demonstrate that firms do not typically benefit from balancing exploration and exploitation within the function domain (technology versus marketing and production alliances) and structure domain (new versus prior partners). Nevertheless, firms that balance exploration and exploitation across these domains by engaging in R&D alliances while collaborating with their prior partners, or alternatively by forming marketing and production alliances while seeking new partners, gain in profits and market value. Moreover, we reveal that increases in firm size that exacerbate resource allocation tradeoffs and routine rigidity reinforce the benefits of balance across domains and the costs of balance within domains. Our domain separation approach offers new insights into how firms can benefit from balancing exploration and exploitation. What matters is not simply whether firms balance exploration and exploitation in their alliance formation decisions but the means by which they achieve such balance |
Seminar 4
February 19, 2009: Yan Gong – UC Irvine, Strategy
Location/Time: SB 122, 12:00pm - 1:30 pm
Seminar Topic: Dancing around improvisation: Advisor network and improvisation migration in new ventures
Speaker Bio: Professor Yan Gong joined the Merage Faculty in the Fall of 2007. His research focuses on capabilities, routines and unexpected events in entrepreneurial firms. His current research explores dynamic paths of how new firms develop routines and capabilities, and how they respond to surprise events in entrepreneurial processes. He is a finalist for the 2006 INFORMS/Organization Science Dissertation Proposal Competition. His research has appeared in the Handbook of Organizational Routines and Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research.
Professor Gong taught courses in strategy and entrepreneurship. He has been an advisor to SunNight Solar, involved in a social initiative of developing sustainable lighting solution in Africa. |
Seminar 5
March 5, 2009: Renee Rottner- UC Irvine, Organization & Management
Location/Time: SB 122, 12:00pm - 1:30 pm
Speaker Bio: Renee Rottner is a doctoral student at UCI's Merage School of Business. Her research focuses on the process of innovation and R&D-intensive organizations, and her related interests include the social impact of technology, public policy, and entrepreneurship. She has a master’s degree in management science from Stanford University and a grant from NASA (with her advisor, Prof. Christine Beckman) that is partially funding this research.
Seminar Topic: “Life of a project: processes of innovation under uncertainty & over time”
Abstract: How do established organizations sustain innovation? This study examines a project -- the Spitzer Space Telescope of NASA's Great Observatories Program (which includes Hubble) -- a telescope that cost $720 million dollars and was in development for three decades. Spitzer was launched in 2003 and is now producing scientific breakthroughs, but first it had to overcome many technical, political, organizational and economic challenges. Specifically, this dissertation study asks: how do processes of attention and structuring influence an innovation project under uncertainty and over time? In this talk, I will present preliminary findings on the formal and informal structures that give shape to emerging ideas, the way in which technical and scientific uncertainty interact with financial and political uncertainty, and the way in which new structures emerge to deal with uncertainty during projects of long duration. |
Seminar 6
April 9, 2009 : Josh Lerner- Harvard Business School, Finance
Location/Time: SB 117, 12:00pm - 1:30 pm
Seminar Topic: With a Little Help from My (Random) Friends: Success and Failure in Post-Business School Entrepreneurship
Speaker Bio: Josh Lerner is the Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking at Harvard Business School, with a joint appointment in the Finance and the Entrepreneurial Management Units. He graduated from Yale College with a Special Divisional Major which combined physics with the history of technology. He worked for several years on issues concerning technological innovation and public policy, at the Brookings Institution, for a public-private task force in Chicago, and on Capitol Hill. He then earned a Ph.D. from Harvard's Economics Department.
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Seminar 7
May 14th 2009: Ashley Wang and Lu Zhang – UC Irvine, Finance & ODT
Location/Time: SB 117, 12:00pm - 1:30 pm
Seminar Topic: Strategy innovativeness and hedge funds |
Sponsored by The Don Beall Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE)
2007-2008 Seminars
2007-2008 Seminars
Seminar 1
November 29, 2007: Andy Hargadon, UC Davis
Location/Time: SB 117, 12:00pm - 1:30 pm
Abstract:
Traditional understanding of expertise has focused on exceptional performance in narrowly defined and static environments: we know little about what it means to be an expert in a dynamic context. There are currently two conflicting models of expertise within dynamic environments—that experts advance change by extending the boundaries of current knowledge and practice (in the sciences, engineering, and arts), and that experts, embedded in current knowledge and practice, resist those changes that redefine those same boundaries. We develop a model that formally acknowledges these distinct roles, and explicates[JK1] the role of experts in driving innovation in dynamic environments. This model of dynamic expertise is grounded in an analysis of the work of engineers at the structural engineering consultancy Dewhurst Macfarlane and Partners on a series of innovative structural glass projects. Over the course of 15 years, this firm pioneered new techniques in the construction industry that enabled the use of glass as a structural material. Our model identifies a number of factors that distinguish dynamic from static expertise: the ability to disregard widespread cultural beliefs and work from principles; the ability to chart adaptive paths through action networks; the ability to transform emergent problems and solutions; and intrinsic motivation and energy. We discuss the implications of this research for understanding and managing the role of experts in technological change. Co-Author: Jennifer K. Whyte, University of Reading, UK. |
Seminar 2
January 24, 2008: Howard Aldrich, Univ. of North Carolina: Small Worlds, Infinite Possibilities? Social Networks and Entrepreneurial Team Formation
Location/Time: SB 223, 12:00pm - 1:30 pm |
Seminar 3
February 21, 2008: Gerard Tellis, USC, Marshall School of Business: Innovation of Firms Across Nations
Location/Time: SB 223, 12:00pm - 1:30 pm |
Seminar 4
March 20, 2008: Mike Tushman, Harvard Business School
Location/Time: SB 223, 12:00pm - 1:30 pm |
Seminar 5
April 24, 2008: Walt Scacchi, UC Irvine
Location/Time: SB 120, 12:00pm - 1:30 pm |
Seminar 6
October 25, 2007: Cristina Gibson, The Merage School at UC Irvine: "When Complex Change is Status Quo: Exploring the Concept of Collaboration External Adjustment in Film Making"
Location/Time: MPAA 120, 12:00pm - 1:30 pm
Abstract:
This paper examines collaboration external adjustment, defined as the collective capability to adapt to challenges in the environment by modifying interaction with external constituents. We first develop the concept and distinguish it from other related, but distinct concepts in the organizational literature. We then propose specific hypotheses regarding the antecedents for external adjustment, drawing upon foundations in the literature on team effectiveness, international strategic management and institutional theory. We argue that the affect of the antecedents is moderated by contextual conditions pertaining to remote collaboration, including geographic dispersion and electronic reliance. Finally, we develop hypotheses regarding the outcomes of external adjustment, highlighting the mechanisms by which it creates consequences for collaborations, and conditions which amplify these effects. We test the proposed relationships in a sample of 109 film making projects using data collected from collaborators who made the films as well as over 4000 members of audiences who viewed them. Our findings have implications for collaborators in dynamic environments facing challenges associated with remote collaboration, which are increasingly common across many industries.
Speaker Biography:
In her work with teams in multinational organizations, Professor Gibson strives to increase performance, longevity and quality of work life for team members from various cultures. She is co-editor with Susan Cohen of the book Virtual Teams That Work: Creating the Conditions for Virtual Team Effectiveness (2003, Jossey-Bass) and co-author with P. Christopher Earley of the book Multinational Teams: A New Perspective (2002, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates). Her research has appeared in Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Cross-cultural Psychology, Advances in International Comparative Management, Journal of Managerial Issues, and Group and Organization Management. |
2006-2007 Seminars
- 11/30/06 - David Obstfeld, The Merage School at UC Irvine: Creative projects and combinatorial search: Toward a less-routine theory of organizing
- 01/11/07 - Anne Miner, U of Wisconsin: Organizational Learning and University Start-Ups
- 03/01/07 - Marco Susani, Motorola: Design as Innovation
- 04/12/07 - Linda Cohen, UC Irvine: Competition, innovation and racing for priority at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
- 05/31/07 - Alva Taylor, Dartmouth, Tuck Sch Bus: Superman or The Fantastic Four: Knowledge Combination and Experience in Innovative Teams
- 06/07/07- Bhaven Sampat, Columbia, Sch Public Hlth: The Dismal Science, The Crown Jewel, and the Endless Frontier: The Complicated Political Economy of the National Institutes of Health
2006-2007 Seminars
Seminar 1
November 30, 2006: David Obstfeld , The Merage School at UC Irvine
Title: Creative projects and combinatorial search: Toward a less-routine theory of organizing
Abstract:
This paper introduces the concept of creative projects defined as discrete, emergent trajectories of interdependent action that multiple actors initiate and orchestrate to introduce new forms into a social context. Creative projects, along with organizational routines, are incorporated into a proposed framework, which allows for both their conceptual distinction and theoretical integration. The framework locates creative projects and routines along an agency continuum ranging from discrete (non-repetitive) to repetitive interdependent action. Three ethnographic case studies examine how evolving means and ends, combinatorial action, and knowledge articulation influence a trajectory's unfolding. |
Seminar 2
January 11, 2007: Anne Miner, U of Wisconsin
Title: Creative projects and combinatorial search: Toward a less-routine theory of organizing
Abstract:
Miner will sketch an overview of research on organizational learning. She will update her prior work that emphasizes how universities around the world engaged in vicarious learning about programs to promote University start-ups. Miner agues that repeated imitation in pursuit of the same goals can produce increased variance in activities and outcomes under certain conditions, in contrast to predictions from some learning and institutional theory. She suggests that there probably no single 'magic recipe for start-ups' that all universities can follow to promote local well-being. This highlights the importance of direct research on specific processes related to university spin-offs. Miner will share early data from two projects exploring learning issues in this context. She will describe an inductive qualitative study of links between scientists’ values and spin-off creation processes. She will also present very early descriptive data on the tendency of one university’s spin-offs to generate new firms themselves. Miner will invite discussion of theoretical and modeling issues in this work. The colloquium is sponsored by the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation’s Science and Art of Strategic Innovation with the collaboration of the Center for Organizational Research & the Organization & Management area of The Paul Merage School of Business. |
Seminar 3
March 01, 2007: Marco Susani, Motorola
Title: Design as Innovation |
Seminar 4
April 12, 2007: Linda Cohen, UC Irvine
Title: Competition, innovation and racing for priority at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office |
Seminar 5
May 31, 2007: Alva Taylor, Dartmouth, Tuck Sch Bus
Title: Superman or The Fantastic Four: Knowledge Combination and Experience in Innovative Teams
Abstract:
We examine how knowledge and experience affect both the mean and variance values of innovations from individuals and teams. We apply and extend theory on innovativeness and creativity to propose that holding multiple knowledge domains produces novel combinations that increase the variance of product performance; and that extensive experience produces outputs with high average performance. We analyzed innovations in the comic book industry, finding that innovations with extreme success and failure are affected by similar factors as high-performing innovations. Multi-member teams and teams with experience working together produced innovations with greater variation in value, but individuals were able to combine knowledge diversity more effectively than teams. |
Seminar 6
June 07, 2007: Bhaven Sampat, Columbia, School of Public Health
Title: The Dismal Science, The Crown Jewel, and the Endless Frontier: The Complicated Political Economy of the National Institutes of Health
Abstract:
The NIH is the biggest funder of biomedical research in the world, and the single largest supporter of research in the U.S., dedicated to “science in pursuit of fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to extend healthy life and reduce the burdens of illness and disability.” A central tension permeating the history of the NIH is that the scientific community has tended to emphasize the “fundamental knowledge” aspect of the NIH’s mission, but taxpayers and disease interest groups ultimately are interested in the health benefits from this research. In this paper, I take the taxpayer perspective, i.e. view “fundamental knowledge” useful not for its consumption value, but rather only because of its potential impact on human health. From this perspective, I critically examine the economic rationale for funding NIH research. This rationale rests on two pillars. First, that the health returns from NIH-funded basic research are high; in particular, that NIH funding yields significant health benefits. And second, that these benefits are not appropriable by private sector actors. Together, these compose the well-known “market failure” argument for funding basic research. I begin with an overview of evidence for these arguments in the context of basic biomedical research. Next, I assess the extent to which NIH allocation patterns in practice actually conform to prescriptions from economic theory. Finally, I conclude with ruminations on theory, practice, and suggestions for future research. |
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