SPEAKER

Ms. Liyue Yan
Ph.D. Candidate in Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship
University of Maryland

ABSTRACT

We study the effect of winning professional performance awards on entrepreneurial entry. We propose that performance awards can increase professionals’ likelihood to become entrepreneurs though increasing their confidence and reputation. We examine the effect of winning a performance award on stock analysts’ likelihood to become entrepreneurs by comparing the winners with a control group with similar ability. Using LinkedIn data, we trace the careers for about 3,000 analysts and find award winners’ likelihood of becoming entrepreneurs is 30% to 40% higher than that of the non-winners. Additionally, we find that the effect of winning is driven by mid-career professionals and those who work at relatively bigger firms. The evidence suggests that winning awards complements existing resources in entrepreneurial entry decisions. Our study provides evidence that performance awards may be low-costs instruments that complement formal policy to encourage entrepreneurship.

SPEAKER

Ms. Jamie Seoyeon Song
Ph.D. Candidate in Management, Entrepreneurship Area
INSEAD

ABSTRACT

This study examines how entrepreneurs engage in communication with audiences to gain their support for entrepreneurs’ innovations. Prior research on framing and social movements suggests that entrepreneurs can garner audiences’ support for their innovations by using interpretative lenses or frames that are similar to those shared among the audiences. When entrepreneurs are engaging in conversations with their audiences in a public domain like online platforms, however, I argue that entrepreneurs’ use of frames that are different from those of their primary audiences would help to gain support from the broader group of secondary audiences who are observing the conversations. By introducing frames that are different from those of their conversational partners, entrepreneurs open up new perspectives in understanding the innovation for the broader observers, thereby expanding the frame that is used to understand the innovation. To test this idea, I use rich conversational data from Product Hunt, an online product discovery platform. I build on the neural network word embedding model, which is a machine learning algorithm for natural language processing, to capture the distance betweeq the frames used by conversational partners in their comments and the frames used by entrepreneurs in their responses. Consistent with my proposition, I find that introducing frames that are different from those of conversational partners increases observers’ support for entrepreneurs’ innovations. This positive effect is stronger when the entrepreneurs’ innovation adopts a nascent market technology, in which case expanding observers’ frames in understanding the innovation is critical, and weaker when the conversational partners are negatively inclined towards the innovation. Overall, this study contributes to our understanding of the dynamic and interactive process of entrepreneurial framing and how it cultivates meaning and catalyzes action for a wider audience.

SPEAKER

Dr. Yanbo Wang
Assistant Professor in Strategy and Policy
NUS Business School

ABSTRACT

Scientists play a central role in a knowledge-based economy. To reverse the “brain drain” trend, many countries have set up policy programs to attract skilled emigrants to return. However, the effectiveness of these programs has been mixed, partly due to policy heterogeneity. This study investigates one of the most prominent programs – China’s Young Thousand Talents Plan – and identifies every member of the first four cohorts of the program and matches them with similarly educated Chinese scientists working overseas, based on the same academic discipline and same pre-“treatment” trend in scientific knowledge production. Difference in differences estimation provides evidence that recruits of the young talent program are associated with a large boost in knowledge productivity, an effect that varies across institutional types (i.e. research universities versus Chinese Academy of Sciences), time and academic disciplines. The performance boosting effect can be completely explained by talent program funding and research team size, suggesting that its success can be replicated in other regions of the world.

SPEAKER

Mr. Matt Cummins
Ph.D Candidate in Organizational Behavior
Stanford Graduate School of Business

ABSTRACT

Recent research has examined spatial design as an aspect of organizational design. I propose that the spatial design of workplaces affects perceptions of social cohesion. Such perceptions are consequential, with implications for community in the workplace, the retention of workers, and group creativity. The interconnection of observable spaces determines opportunities to observe the social interactions of nearby colleagues. I theorize that this information materially affects the observer’s perception of social cohesion. In a large-scale study of a financial technology firm, I find that the degree of interconnection of observable spaces is positively associated with perceived social cohesion. I then present a quasi-experimental study set in a university administrative unit, finding a positive causal effect of change in the degree of interconnection of nearby spaces on change in perceived social cohesion. With these findings, I suggest that social psychological outcomes are within the scope of organizational design, beyond structuring patterns of interaction or information flows. Furthermore, I highlight a previously unexamined tension between designing shared workplaces to promote perceptions of social cohesion, versus designing these to promote privacy. I discuss implications of my findings for the management of community, retention, and group creativity.

SPEAKER

Dr. Shipeng Yan
Assistant Professor of Management
City University of Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we seek to establish regulatory transparency as a critical but overlooked factor that moderates the effectiveness of environmental reporting intervention to drive performance improvement. We contend that environmental reporting as an intervention has the potential to facilitate environmental governance by (1) increasing organizational self-awareness of irresponsible conducts, and (2) amplifying peer pressures through social comparison, but a lack of regulatory transparency could prevent it from enabling performance change. We identify two types of regulatory transparency – outcome transparency and procedural transparency – and theorize how they contribute to the effectiveness of environmental reporting intervention differently. Using novel panel data on the lending activities of 46 Chinese banks in 32 provinces before and after the of Green Credit Initiative, we find that transparency on procedures of regulatory rulemaking (procedural transparency) can be more effective than transparency on outcomes of enforcement records (outcome transparency). Such a difference is more salient among peripheral organizations (joint-stock banks) relative to their dominant counterparts (state banks). We contribute to research on regulatory institutions, environmental governance and organizational change.

SPEAKER

Ms. Willow Wu
Ph.D. Candidate in Management Science & Engineering
Stanford University

ABSTRACT

Online entrepreneurial fundraising platforms not only serve as information intermediaries that connect entrepreneurs with investors, but also serve as institutional intermediaries that enable entrepreneurs to develop capabilities through interacting with investors. Previous literature has discussed how institutional intermediaries impact entrepreneurs but has neglected how entrepreneurs use institutional intermediaries. To address this gap, we explore how entrepreneurs leverage online institutional intermediaries to develop capabilities and increase the likelihood of receiving investors’ intention to build initial connections. Specifically, we propose a steppingstone strategy to leverage institutional intermediaries. The process of building stepping-stones starts with contacting high-status investors, gets accelerated by receiving concrete replies, and is accomplished through iterations of revising business plans. We find support for the stepping-stone mechanism by analyzing 780,904 business plan submissions from entrepreneurs and 49,145 replies from investors on a platform. Overall, this paper contributes to institutional intermediary literature by examining entrepreneurial agency and contributes to social network literature by analyzing the early-stage interactions between entrepreneurs and investors in initial tie formation.

SPEAKER

Ms. Qi Zhang
Ph.D. Candidate in Management and Entrepreneurship
Henry B. Tippie College of Business
University of Iowa

SPEAKER

Ms. Michelle Lee
Ph.D. in Strategic Management
Foster School of Business
University of Washington

ABSTRACT

Organizational scholars studying managers of large companies have long theorized that the managerial class is dominated by elites from upper social class backgrounds, suggesting that there is a preference for higher social class in selection for the chief executive position. However, prior research has not determined whether this preference is an effect of social class background or the result of human capital disparities between individuals of different social classes. In this study, I seek to assess whether social class can elicit evaluative advantages in favor of certain individuals and against others, above and beyond that which observable differences between candidates can explain. I propose two theoretical mechanisms of selection to help better understand who rises to the top in organizations. An affinity-based perspective suggests that higher social class candidates will be given preference because of their affinity with the broader elite culture surrounding organizations. Alternatively, a mobility-based perspective submits that candidates from a lower social class may have an advantageous attribution of competence, growth capability, and strong work ethic because they have overcome the barriers faced by those of lower social class in moving up within organizations. I reconcile and test these predictions using institutional logics research that provides strong evidence of two frameworks that competed in executive selection decisions from the 1970s to the present: managerial and market logics. I use a unique sample of 450 lead candidates for CEO with a detailed measure of social class that incorporates handcollected census data on each candidate’s parental occupation, education, and income. My findings suggest that when a managerial logic is prevalent, as measured by the degree of diversification in companies and the proportion of executives on board, a mobility-based selection favoring those from lower social class is the dominant selection mechanism. However, as a market logic has become the dominant framework in organizations, as measured by institutional ownership and a more recent time period, those from higher social class backgrounds are more likely to be selected.

SPEAKER

Dr. Victoria (Shu) Zhang
Postdoctoral Associate
School of Management
Yale University

ABSTRACT

Why do non-compliant practices persist in the face of regulations? This paper unpacks variations in regulatory compliance by investigating how social networks and regulations work in tandem. Using a longitudinal network consisting of 312,351 physicians from 2015 to 2017 and a triple-differences design, I find that the effects of regulations are dampened in networks with non-complying peers but amplified in networks with compliant peers. Moreover, distinct network typologies support compliance and non-compliance. Non-compliance is more likely to persist among centrally embedded professionals surrounded by non-complying peers – consistent with a “safety in numbers” mechanism. However, attentiveness to compliant peers did not vary by network centrality. Peer influence also varies by tenure. Older professionals are more attentive to peers in adopting compliant practices. Importantly, the introduction of the regulations also shifted the peer influence process by activating stronger influence from compliant peers. This paper contributes to the intersection of regulations and social networks literature by showing that peer influence and regulations work in tandem to drive variations in compliance. The implications are three-fold. First, non-compliance is sustained in the presence of deviant peers. Social reinforcement from compliant peers is key to realizing regulatory efforts. Second, regulations activate stronger peer influence, pushing prior “holdouts” into complying. Finally, this work advances our understanding of how different network typologies perpetuate distinct network-based mechanisms of influence. The findings help explain pockets of regulatory compliance and resistance and hold implications for curtailing professional deviance.

SPEAKER

Dr. Brian Wu
Associate Professor of Strategy
Stephen M. Ross School of Business
University of Michigan

ABSTRACT

Using market-frictions based logic, we develop an analytical model that examines how online platforms can govern opportunistic behavior of offline service providers, thus allowing market forces to promote the general welfare. Empowered by information technologies, online platforms enable service providers to offer customized services that consumers have increasingly desired. Along with its tremendous value-creation potential, offering customized services encourages greater opportunism from the service providers. While reputation-based mechanisms have been proposed to foster trust, their effectiveness may be limited by excessive competition. To address this problem, we propose a novel platform design where the platform may induce a welfare-enhancing equilibrium where (i) the service providers on the platform enjoy higher capacity utilization than those outside and are motivated to exert effort by future concerns, and (ii) customers prefer service providers on the platform and are willing to pay a premium. Further, we evaluate the implications of our proposed approach on platform profitability by comparing different payment schemes, and generalize the model regarding imperfect monitoring signals and the entry and exit of service providers. Our work sheds new light on how platform design can help reduce market frictions in economic exchanges and potentially shape the evolution of industries.