Maxim Sytch

Environmental Demands and the Emergence of Social Structure Technological Dynamism and Interorganizational Network Forms

This study investigates the origins of variation in the structures of interorganizational networks across industries. We combine empirical analyses of existing interorganizational networks in six industries with an agent-based simulation model of network emergence. Using data on technology partnerships from 1983 to 1999 between firms in the automotive, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, chemicals, microelectronics, new materials, and telecommunications industries, we find that differences in technological dynamism across industries and the concomitant demands for value creation engender variations in firms’ collaborative behaviors. On average, firms in technologically dynamic industries pursue more-open ego networks, which fosters access to new and diverse resources that help sustain continuous innovation. In contrast, firms in technologically stable industries on average pursue more-closed ego networks, which fosters reliable collaboration and helps preserve existing resources. We show that because of the observed cross-industry differences in firms’ collaborative behaviors, the emergent industry-wide networks take on distinct structural forms. Technologically stable industries feature clan networks, characterized by low network connectedness and rather strong community structures. Technologically dynamic industries feature community networks, characterized by high network connectedness and medium-to-strong community structures. Convention networks, which feature high network connectedness and weak community structures, were not evident among the empirical networks we examined. Taken together, our findings advance an environmental contingency theory of network formation, which proposes a close association between the characteristics of actors’ environment and the processes of network formation among actors.

Research on Strategic Alliances in Biotechnology: An Assessment and Review

In a review of the large body of research on interorganizational ties in biotechnology, we dissect the complexities of forming and managing networks of interorganizational ties with respect to a firms needs and aspirations, its choice of partners, and its choice of partnership governance forms. We review and evaluate the body of evidence demonstrating that a firms ability to access knowledge and other resources, as well as to gain legitimacy, rests on its ability to manage its position in the network of interorganizational ties.

Ideology and exceptionalism in intellectual property: An empirical study

This article investigates the relationship between ideology and judicial decision-making in the context of intellectual property. Using data drawn from Supreme Court intellectual property cases decided in between 1954 and 2006, we show that ideology is a significant determinant of cases involving intellectual property rights: the more conservative a judge is, the more likely he or she is to vote in favor of an intellectual property claim. However, our analysis also shows that there are significant differences between intellectual property and other areas of the law with respect to the effect of ideology. This analysis has important implications for the study of intellectual property. It also contributes to the broader judicial ideology literature by demonstrating the effect of ideology in economic cases.

The architecture and dynamics of global networks

It has become a stylized fact that patterns of interorganizational connections affect a variety of organizational outcomes. For example, an organization’s ability to assemble varied knowledge from diverse sources to serve its strategic goals is a key to productive innovation and an important source of competitive advantage (e.g., Baum, McEvily, & Rowley, 2012; Owen-Smith & Powell, 2004; Powell, 1996). Network structures of interorganizational collaborative relationships can either enable or constrain an organization’s ability to achieve this outcome by shaping its access to the flows of tacit knowledge, information, and other resources.