Reddi Kotha

Entry into Insular Domains: A Longitudinal Study of Knowledge Structuration and Innovation in Biotechnology Firms

We focus on the firms decision to enter insular technology domains and its effect on the impact that its subsequent innovation has on the field. Insular domains are technical domains that rely heavily on prior innovations within the same domain for subsequent innovations. We show that the returns to entering insular domains vary with the firms depth and breadth of knowledge. By analysing data from 128 biotechnology firms over a 20-year period, we find that the relationship between depth of technological capabilities and technology impact is nuanced: depth is necessary but not sufficient for high impact innovation. Firms whose knowledge is spread over disparate domains have negative returns from entering insular domains. The implications of these findings for theories of innovation and the discovery of entrepreneurial opportunities are discussed.

Optimism, Vulnerability, and Entrepreneurial Intent: Occupation Change Intentions in Rural East Africa

We examine how income seeking attitude, economic and occupational vulnerability jointly influence individual intentions to switch into entrepreneurship under desperate poverty. We posit that vulnerability negatively moderates the relationship between optimism and entrepreneurial intention. We find support for our predictions in a sample of 673 individuals from two sub-locations in rural Kenya. The study design enables us to compare intention to change occupation into entrepreneurship against changing into other occupations. We find that intention to change into entrepreneurship has a distinctly different causal process. We discuss implications of our findings entrepreneurship under conditions of desperate poverty and the theory of planned behavior.

BRIDGING THE MUTUAL KNOWLEDGE GAP: COORDINATION AND THE COMMERCIALIZATION OF RADICAL SCIENCE.

This study examines why some inventions are commercialized. We focus on the coordination costs within the inventor team to further develop the technology and the coordination costs involved in transferring knowledge to licensee firms. We test whether the variation in levels of mutual knowledge in scientist teams influences the likelihood that their inventions will be licensed. We test our predictions in a large sample of 4,575 invention disclosures by teams of scientists. We find a pattern of results that confirm that the anticipated coordination costs influence whether an invention is licensed. The implications for the literatures in coordination and innovation are discussed.

RESOURCE CONTRIBUTION AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF EQUITY IN STARTUPS.

Entrepreneurs parse out the equity in their new venture to those individuals who contribute resources toward the formation of the nascent firm. Since the value of non-financial resources is not imm...