Nominated for Peter B. Vaill Outstanding Doctoral Educator Award

This is what I found on my office door this morning...

Thanks to the doctoral students for nominating me!

Happy Easter 2012

From the Walter family!

Paper Included in AOM Best Paper Proceedings

I'm very happy to announce that another research project I'm involved in will be included in the Best Paper Proceedings of the Academy of Management Meeting, this time for the 2012 Meeting in Boston, MA:

Exclusivity in biotech licensing deals: What makes licensors restrict their options?

Theodore A. Khoury*, Jorge Walter**, & Erin G. Pleggenkuhle-Miles***

* Portland State University, ** The George Washington University, *** University of Nebraska at Omaha

In this paper, we ask the question: How do licensing transactions unfold in technological alliances? We address this research question with emphasis on understanding the impact of technology stage, previous licensing experience, verticality of partner choice, and market relevance on licensing agreement terms. In particular, we leverage transaction-cost and resource-based theories as well as a large and novel dataset comprised of 2,809 biotechnology licensing transactions to understand when these transactional features lead to non-exclusive versus exclusive licensing outcomes. Our findings contribute to fledgling research on contracts at the transaction unit of analysis and offer implications for entrepreneurial firms’ options to enhance the chances of survival in highly uncertain product markets.

Keywords: Technology licensing; exclusivity; biotechnology industry

Dormant Ties Article an "Editor’s Pick: Top Ten Articles from 2011"

Our article "The power of reconnection—How dormant ties can surprise you." published last year in the MIT Sloan Management Review has been recognized as an "Editor’s Pick: Top Ten Articles from 2011."

According to the MIT Sloan Management Review, "The top 10 articles of 2011 came from some of the most exciting thinkers around the world. They were the articles that subscribers, followers and bloggers were most keen to engage on.

For a copy of the article, please visit the MIT SMR website.

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!

2011 SMS Annual International Conference

The 31st Annual International Conference of the Strategic Management Society took place from November 6-9 in Miami, FL. Under the conference theme "Strategies for a Multi-Polar World: National Institutions And Global Competition" my co-authors Ted Khoury (Portland State University) and Erin Pleggenkuhle-Miles (University of Nebraska, Omaha) presented our paper:

For more information, check the SMS Website.

New Article Forthcoming in the Journal of Business Research

New Article Forthcoming in the Journal of Business Research:

A Judgment-Analysis Perspective on Entrepreneurs' Resource Evaluations

Benedict Kemmerer*, Jorge Walter**, Franz W. Kellermanns***, V. K. Narayanan****

* BSH Bosch und Siemens Hausgeraete GmbH, ** The George Washington University, *** University of Tennessee, **** Drexel University

Our study extends resource-based theory (RBT) by developing an understanding of how entrepreneurs judge the importance of the resource attributes of value, rareness, inimitability, and nonsubstitutability for the success of their ventures, and whether they make trade-offs between these attributes or follow RBT, which maintains that all attributes must be attained simultaneously. Resource judgments made by a sample of 181 entrepreneurs reveal that, while value and inimitability have a positive impact on resource importance, nonsubstitutability is only marginally positive, and rareness has a negative impact. Moreover, and contrary to RBT, entrepreneurs make trade-offs between resource attributes. Given prior empirical support for the critical influence of all four attributes on venture success, our findings uncover a systematic influence of judgment heuristics, cognitive biases, and institutional constraints in entrepreneurial resource judgments, and thereby provide a starting point for researchers and entrepreneurs alike to improve both theoretical models and outcomes of resource judgments.

Keywords: Judgment analysis, cognitions, behavioral decision making, resource-evaluation frameworks

For a copy of the article, please refer to the Social Science Research Network.

2011 Academy of Management Annual Meeting

From August 12-16, the 2011 Academy of Management Annual Meeting took place in San Antonio, TX. Under the conference theme "West meets East. Enlightening. Balancing. Transcending," we presented our paper:

For more information, check the AOM Website.