Damon J. Phillips

Friends or Strangers? Firm-Specific Uncertainty, Market Uncertainty, and Network Partner Selection

In this study, we address the topic of interorganizational network change by exploring factors that affect the choice of alliance and interlock partners. While many studies have been devoted to investigating various factors driving network partner choice, there is also an interesting and unexplored tension in this body of work. On the one hand, much work emphasizes change in social structure--showing that firms expand networks by forming new relationships with new partners. At the same time, other scholars emphasize stability of social structure--showing that firms tend to choose past exchange partners. We seek to reconcile this tension by proposing that firms form new relationships with new partners as a form of exploration, and form additional relationships with existing partners as a form of exploitation (March 1991). Further, whether exploration or exploitation is chosen depends on the type of uncertainty that firms are facing: whether it is firm-specific or market-level uncertainty. We test our hypotheses using data on both interlock and alliance networks for the 300 largest U.S. firms during the 1988-1993 period. The results provide some evidence that whether networks are stable or changing depends on the type of uncertainty experienced by firms.

Middle‐Status Conformity: Theoretical Restatement and Empirical Demonstration in Two Markets1

This article aims to reestablish the long‐standing conjecture that conformity is high at the middle and low at either end of a status order. On a theoretical level, the article clarifies the basis for expecting such an inverted \documentclass{aastex} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{bm} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{pifont} \usepackage{stmaryrd} \usepackage{textcomp} \usepackage{portland,xspace} \usepackage{amsmath,amsxtra} \usepackage[OT2,OT1]{fontenc} \newcommand\cyr{ \renewcommand\rmdefault{wncyr} \renewcommand\sfdefault{wncyss} \renewcommand\encodingdefault{OT2} \normalfont \selectfont} \DeclareTextFontCommand{\textcyr}{\cyr} \pagestyle{empty} \DeclareMathSizes{10}{9}{7}{6} \begin{document} \landscape

Organizational Genealogies and the Persistence of Gender Inequality: The Case of Silicon Valley Law Firms

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The Promotion Paradox: Organizational Mortality and Employee Promotion Chances in Silicon Valley Law Firms, 1946–19961

\end{document} ‐shaped curve, taking care to specify key scope conditions on the social‐psychological orientations of the actors, the characteristics of the status structure, and the nature of the relevant actions. It also validates the conjecture in two settings that both meet such conditions and allow for the elimination of confounding effects: the Silicon Valley legal services market and the market for investment advice. These results inform our understanding of how an actors status interacts with her role incumbency to produce differential conformity in settings that meet the specified scope conditions.

Betrayal as Market Barrier: Identity-Based Limits to Diversification among High-Status Corporate Law Firms1

Data on Silicon Valley law firms over a 50-year period were used to study the genealogy of organizational populations and its consequences for organizational life chances when a member of an existing firm leaves to found a new firm. Hypotheses and subsequent analysis suggest that the transfer of resources and routines between a parent organization and its progeny decreases life chances for the parent firm and increases life chances for the progeny. The results are contingent on the founders previous position in the parent firm and time since the parenting event. In addition, I find that progeny have lower life chances when the parent is a failing firm, when there are multiple parents, and when the founder is a former senior partner of a large law firm.

Why Pseudonyms? Deception as Identity Preservation Among Jazz Record Companies, 1920--1929

Using a study on foundings of Silicon Valley law firms, I propose and test an organizational theory on the genealogical persistence of gender inequality that emphasizes the routines (or blueprints) and experiences that founders transfer from their parent firms to their new firms. This transfer links the parent firms gender hierarchy to womens advancement opportunities in the new firm. Founders from parent firms that historically had women in leadership positions, such that female leadership is institutionalized, are more likely to found firms that promote women into prominent positions. Conversely, founders from firms that historically had women in subordinate positions, such that female subordination is institutionalized, are less likely to promote women into prominent positions. Findings are consistent with the theory and also show that the persistence effect is stronger for founders who were previously lower-ranked employees and for founders who institute an organization of work similar to their parent firm. The study suggests that future research should investigate routines and structures that not only generate gender inequality unintentionally but are in turn replicated across generations of organization through the mobility of employees.

Jazz and the Disconnected: City Structural Disconnectedness and the Emergence of a Jazz Canon, 1897–1933

Explanations of gender inequality typically emphasize individual characteristics, the structure of internal labor markets, or pressures from the institutional environment. Extending the structuralist and institutional perspectives, this article argues that the demographic composition of an organizations exchange partners can influence the demographic composition of the focal organization when the focal organization is dependent upon its partners. Specifically, law firms with women-led corporate clients increase the number of partners who are women attorneys. Data on elite law firms and their publicly traded clients support a bargaining power hypothesis whereby law firms promote women attorneys when their corporate clients have women in three key leadership positions: general (legal) counsel, chief executive officer, and board director. These effects are stronger when the law firm has few clients, reinforcing the hypothesis that interorganizational influence is more vital when a focal organization is dependent on its exchange partner. The results also support a related explanation based on homophily theory. The analysis rules out several alternative explanations and establishes a relationship between the presence of women-led clients and the promotion of women attorneys in law firms.

The Specialist Discount Negative Returns for MBAs with Focused Profiles in Investment Banking

This article argues that there is a “promotion paradox”—a negative relation between firm life chances and employee promotion chances. I argue that this is due to a firm’s bargaining power, which increases with the firm’s competitive strength. I find strong support using data on 50 years of Silicon Valley law firms and attorneys. Young, small, specialist, and low‐status firms are more likely to fail but are also contexts with the highest promotion likelihood. Moreover, except for those firms that are “near death,” an associate’s promotion likelihood increases with the law firm’s probability of failure.