Mind the Gaps: How Organization Design Shapes the Sourcing of Inventions

Eklund, John; Kapoor, Rahul

doi:10.1287/orsc.2021.1483

Cited by 15 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 95 publications

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“…First, I highlight the importance of considering the effect of R&D team design on innovation. Organizational design shapes how its employees learn and absorb new knowledge (Clement & Puranam, 2018; Eklund & Kapoor, 2022; Karim & Kaul, 2015). In particular, understanding the critical role of collaborative teams in driving innovation within firms (Edmondson & Harvey, 2018; Mortensen & Haas, 2018; Singh & Fleming, 2010; Taylor & Greve, 2006; Teodoridis, 2018; Wuchty et al, 2007), scholars have explored how different ways of designing teams affect organization outcomes (Choudhury & Haas, 2018; Hoisl et al, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cascading innovation: R&D team design and performance implications of mobility

Chang

2022

Strategic Management Journal

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Research SummaryGiven the high cost of external hiring and uncertainty related to performance benefits, how can organizations foster an environment that maximizes the post‐mobility performance of external hires and their collaborators? In this article, I posit that R&D team design is an important factor that could shape the post‐mobility performances of both groups. Building on the interfirm mobility, innovation, and teams literatures, I argue that technological knowledge diversity within teams and across teams could differently impact innovation performance. Analyzing 63,976 interfirm moves of engineers and scientists, I find that the post‐mobility performances of external hires and teammates are conditioned by team design. A high level of within‐team diversity improves the performances of both groups, while a high level of across‐team diversity hurts their innovation outcomes.Managerial SummaryIn the war for talent, firms often offer premium wages to source external hires. Yet there have been unclear expectations about the post‐mobility outcomes of these hires and the implications for team performance. To better assess the value of hiring, managers should look beyond the performance of external hires and also consider team member performance. In the context of knowledge production activities, external hires, on average, experience an improvement in innovation performance after they move. Working with an external hire reduces the productivity of immediate collaborators but leads to more breakthrough innovations with greater technological impact. Most importantly, the performances of external hires and their teammates can be further improved by effectively designing R&D teams. Recomposing teams such that a high level of diversity exists within a team but minimal divergence across teams creates an environment that appears to enhance post‐mobility innovation activities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cascading innovation: R&D team design and performance implications of mobility

Chang

2022

Strategic Management Journal

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“…In broad terms, an organization's structure encompasses the choices made along four dimensions: task division, task allocation, provision of incentives, and provision of information (Galbraith, 1973;Puranam, Alexy, and Reitzig, 2014). These choices can significantly impact the way an organization's knowledge is stored, shared internally, and applied toward innovation (Denrell, Fang, and Winter, 2003;Eklund, 2022). A range of studies have demonstrated how structural features such as hierarchy (Gavetti, 2005;Csaszar, 2013;Lee, 2022), task differentiation (Dougherty, 1992;Burton and Obel, 2004), and the incentives of employees (Lerner and Wulf, 2007;Manso, 2011) may affect an organization's innovation outcomes.…”

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An organization's structure determines where its knowledge is located, the pathways along which knowledge flows internally, as well as the incentives of its employees to acquire, use and share knowledge (Argyres, Rios, and Silverman, 2020;Lee, 2022). Several studies have demonstrated that organizations' innovation outcomes are closely linked to their structures (Argyres and Silverman, 2004;Ter Wal et al, 2020;Eklund, 2022), which also impacts the value they are able to derive from external partnerships (Arora, Belenzon, and Rios, 2014;Sytch, Wohlgezogen, and Zajac, 2018;Eklund and Kapoor, 2022). However, the knowledge firms seek to access via partnerships is embedded within their partners' organizations rather than their own, and the impact of their partners' structures in shaping their access to this knowledge remains an open question.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Partner Organizational Structure on Innovation

Balachandran,

Eklund

2023

Administrative Science Quarterly

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Interorganizational partnerships can spur innovation, but their value may be diminished by friction in knowledge flows between firms. We consider how a partner’s organizational structure may influence the knowledge that is accessible via partnerships. We focus on how a partner’s structure trades off localized autonomy for its managers, which facilitates timelier decision making, and unified control, which facilitates integration. By shaping this balance, centralization of decision rights within the partner organization shapes access to its knowledge. Centralized structures generate wide-ranging internal knowledge pathways that enable access to a broader array of a partner’s knowledge. However, the reduced managerial autonomy afforded by centralization makes decision making more cumbersome, which constricts the rate of access to a partner’s knowledge. We find evidence of this tradeoff in the context of corporate venture capital relationships between incumbents and startups in the pharmaceutical industry. An increase in the incumbent’s diversity of knowledge or in the knowledge required by the startup enhances the value of a greater breadth of access, whereas the degree to which the startup can leverage social ties (affinity) or hierarchical fiat (authority) alleviates the costs of a reduced access rate. Each of these features makes an incumbent organization’s centralization more valuable to the startup. By highlighting this tension related to centralization, our findings suggest that new firms striving to maximize their partnership benefits may need to carefully consider their partners’ internal structures.

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“…Early research highlights that a firm solves a problem using both internally generated and externally sourced knowledge (Cassiman and Veugelers, 2006). Building on related research, we posit that the extent to which intrafirm network affects a firm’s new knowledge search is determined by the firm’s external alliance number (Eklund and Kapoor, 2021).…”

Section: Theoretical Background and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

How intrafirm collaboration network influences a firm’s new knowledge search? Longitudinal evidence from the US biotechnology industry

Ding

2023

JKM

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Purpose This study aims to reveal the contribution mechanism of various types of intrafirm networks formed among inventors to firms’ searching for new knowledge. This study also intends to show how this mechanism is influenced by the geographic dispersion of inventors and the external alliance of firms. Design/methodology/approach This study develops an analytical framework building on social network theory to explain the collective search among inventors within the firm. The authors validate the hypotheses using the data from 316 publicly traded biotechnology firms in the USA. Findings As demonstrated by the findings, intrafirm network clustering facilitates the search for new knowledge. The geographic dispersion of inventors’ location has a negative moderating effect on this relation, whereas the number of alliance partners has a positive moderating effect on this relation. By contrast, the search for new knowledge is hampered by the intrafirm network average path length. The geographic dispersion of inventors positively moderates this relation, whereas a firm’s alliance partner number negatively moderates this relation. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the joint effect of intrafirm networks, inventors’ geographic locations and external alliances on the new knowledge-searching process. This study points out that new knowledge acquired through inventors’ geographic locations and alliance partners is internalized efficiently according to different types of internal networks.

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Mind the Gaps: How Organization Design Shapes the Sourcing of Inventions

Cited by 15 publications

References 95 publications

Cascading innovation: R&D team design and performance implications of mobility

Cascading innovation: R&D team design and performance implications of mobility

The Impact of Partner Organizational Structure on Innovation

How intrafirm collaboration network influences a firm’s new knowledge search? Longitudinal evidence from the US biotechnology industry

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