Gurneeta Vasudeva

The Embeddedness of Networks: Institutions, Structural Holes, and Innovativeness in the Fuel Cell Industry

Plentiful research suggests that embeddedness in alliance networks influences firms’ innovativeness. This research, however, has mostly overlooked the fact that interorganizational ties are themselves embedded within larger institutional contexts that can shape the effects of networks on organizational outcomes. We address this gap in the literature by arguing that national institutions affect the extent to which specific network positions, such as brokerage, influence innovation. We explore this idea in the context of corporatism, which fosters an institutional logic of collaboration that influences the broker’s ability to manage its partnerships and recombine the knowledge residing in its network as well as the extent of knowledge flows among network participants. We argue that differences in institutional logics lead brokerage positions to exert different effects on firm innovativeness. We propose that the firm spanning structural holes obtains the greatest innovation benefits when the firm the broker or its alliance partners are based in highly corporatist countries, or under certain combinations of broker and partner corporatism. We find support for these ideas through a longitudinal study of cross-border fuel cell technology alliance networks involving 109 firms from nine countries between 1981 and 2001.

Colocation Still Matters: Conformance Quality and the Interdependence of R&D and Manufacturing in the Pharmaceutical Industry

This study investigates the conformance quality benefits of colocating manufacturing with research and development R&D activities. Findings from a panel data set of U.S.-based pharmaceutical plants over a 13-year period reveal that colocation of manufacturing and R&D relates to better conformance quality, on average, across the entire sample. We find that these benefits of colocation persist throughout the time period we study 1994-2007, which is surprising, given the rapid development of information and communication technologies during that time. These benefits are particularly enhanced for manufacturing plants operating with processes that involve a high level of tacit process knowledge and that belong to large firms. Our findings highlight the importance of matching organizational design with process and firm characteristics in settings involving knowledge interdependence. They also highlight the continued value of physical proximity through geographical colocation between manufacturing and R&D activities to achieve desired quality outcomes. This paper was accepted by Serguei Netessine, operations management.

R&D internationalization: Building organizational capabilities to balance exploration and exploitation

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Overcoming Information Asymmetry in Internationalization: The Signaling Effect of a Sovereign Wealth Fund as an Institutional Intermediary

Combining perspectives from the literature on institutional activism and signaling theory, we suggest that a sovereign wealth fund (SWF), owing to its distinctive properties as a government-owned foreign institutional investor, serves as an intermediary signaler, providing cues about host countries’ institutional environment to internationalizing firms. By publicizing its investments and engaging in institutional activism to transform the corporate governance practices in host countries, a SWF signals the institutional quality of host countries, which allows firms to overcome the well-known ‘lemons’ problem in international decisionmaking. We examine the impact of a SWF’s signals on firms’ ownership choices in their foreign acquisitions. Empirical analysis of Norway’s SWF and firms from Norway and Sweden during 1998-2011 shows that firms are more likely to take full equity ownership—indicative of larger commitments—in acquisitions in host countries where Norway’s SWF holds larger investments. The signaling effect of the SWF weakens for conational firms, suggesting a diminishing signal strength with proximity to the signaler due to alternative information channels. Similarly, institutional harmonization between the home and host countries enabled by intergovernmental organizations weakens the signaling effect of SWF investments. Our findings point to a new intermediary signaler and the salience of its signals for firms’ international decision-making. Academy of Management Journal