Scott Shane | Case Western Reserve University (original) (raw)

Papers by Scott Shane

We extend the resource-based perspective to explain innovation in new firms that have yet to deve... more We extend the resource-based perspective to explain innovation in new firms that have yet to develop resources. Using data on firms' efforts to commercialize technological inventions, we tested a model of the environmental conditions under which new firms' lack of resources alternately promotes or constrains innovation. We found that new firm innovation is greater in competitive and small markets, and in environments that do not demand extensive production assets.

Journal of Business Venturing, 1994

SSRN-Explaining the Formation of International New Ventures: The Limits of Theories from Internat... more SSRN-Explaining the Formation of International New Ventures: The Limits of Theories from International Business Research by Patricia Phillips McDougall, Scott Shane, Benjamin M. Oviatt.

Management Science, 2002

... General Terms: Documentation. Collaborative Colleagues: David C. Mowery: colleagues. Scott Sh... more ... General Terms: Documentation. Collaborative Colleagues: David C. Mowery: colleagues. Scott Shane: colleagues. The ACM Portal is published by the Association for Computing Machinery. Copyright © 2009 ACM, Inc. Terms ...

Journal of Business Venturing, 1995

EXECUTIVE of entrepreneurship over time: (1) level of analysis differences between S~Y Address co... more EXECUTIVE of entrepreneurship over time: (1) level of analysis differences between S~Y Address correspondence to William B.

Decision Sciences, 1998

Large firms face a conflict in managing a portfolio of high-risk projects. When an ongoing projec... more Large firms face a conflict in managing a portfolio of high-risk projects. When an ongoing project is thought to have a low likelihood of success, project team members take risks to improve its chances of success. However, upper-level managers who allocate resources tend to withhold resources from a project with a low likelihood of success in favor of others in the portfolio that look more promising. Because this paucity of resources influences project team members to avoid risk, the total effect of success likelihood on risk taking is conflicted. The influence on risk taking of a project's terminal valuedefined as the value that remains in the firm in the event of project failure-is unequivocally positive, because both senior management resource allocation and project team risk-taking propensity are encouraged by terminal value. Thus, firms can ovemde the ambivalent effect of likelihood of success on project decision making by focusing attention on a project's terminal value. Figure 1: Risk taking vs. expected performance. 767 a. Risk taking vs. expected performance in the region below an aspiration level. Aspiration level of perfamance (e.g. success) J b. Risk taking vs. expected performance in the region above an aspiration level.

We applied quantitative genetics techniques to a sample of 347 pairs of monozygotic and 303 pairs... more We applied quantitative genetics techniques to a sample of 347 pairs of monozygotic and 303 pairs of dizygotic twins taken from the MIDUS database to examine the influence of genetic factors on the variation across people in the tendency to be self-employed and to ...

We examine firms' choice of organizational governance form. Using longitudinal data on a sample o... more We examine firms' choice of organizational governance form. Using longitudinal data on a sample of business format franchisors operating in North America, we show that the crosssectional evidence commonly used to demonstrate support for efficient contracting explanations for organizational governance form is not robust to the year of investigation, firm effects, or selection effects. We theorize that this outcome may result from dynamic processes through which a firm's organizational governance form evolves. We develop and test two hypotheses for the effects of organizational momentum on organizational governance form, and find that organizational momentum is a robust predictor. Our results suggest that researchers consider the dynamics of momentum in explaining the form of firm governance.

Management Science, 1999

Why do some new firms succeed and others fail? Economists argue that new firms fail because entre... more Why do some new firms succeed and others fail? Economists argue that new firms fail because entrepreneurs inefficiently manage production and organizational design (Williamson 1985). Sociologists (e.g., Granovetter 1985) have typically viewed this explanation as undersocialized, and argue that institutional legitimacy must also be considered to explain the survival of new firms. This paper examines the survival of 1292 new

The Journal of applied psychology, 2010

We applied multivariate genetics techniques to a sample of 3,412 monozygotic and dizygotic twins ... more We applied multivariate genetics techniques to a sample of 3,412 monozygotic and dizygotic twins from the United Kingdom and 1,300 monozygotic and dizygotic twins from the United States to examine whether genetic factors account for part of the covariance between the Big Five personality characteristics and the tendency to be an entrepreneur. We found that common genes influenced the phenotypic correlations between only Extraversion and Openness to Experience and the tendency to be an entrepreneur. Although the phenotypic correlations between the personality characteristics and the tendency to be an entrepreneur were small in size, genetic factors accounted for most of them.

For a field of social science to have usefulness, it must have a conceptual frame- work that expl... more For a field of social science to have usefulness, it must have a conceptual frame- work that explains and predicts a set of empirical phenomena not explained or predicted by conceptual frameworks already in existence in other fields. To date, the phenomenon of entrepreneurship has ...

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

At least since Arrow (1962), economists have believed that strong property rights are necessary f... more At least since Arrow (1962), economists have believed that strong property rights are necessary for firms to invest in innovation. This belief was a key principle underlying the Bayh-Dole Act, which gave universities the right to own and license federally funded inventions, because the commercialization of university inventions requires private firm investment in development, given the early stage of these inventions at the time that they are licensed. However, surprisingly little research has examined this key principle. In this paper, we exploit a database of 805 attempts by private firms to commercialize inventions licensed exclusively from MIT between 1980 and 1996 to address this issue. The data allow us to examine the timing of subsequent commercialization or termination of the licenses to these inventions as a function of the length of patent protection, as well as other measures of appropriability. We model the firm?s investment decision as an optimal stopping problem, and we characterize the hazard rates of first sale and termination over time. In both the theory and the empirical analysis, we find two opposing effects of time. The length of patent protection provides an incentive for the firm to invest that declines with time; while the probability of technical success increases in each period that the firm invests. Competing risks models to predict the resulting hazards of first sale and termination reveal that, for these data, the hazard of first sale has an inverted u-shape and the hazard of termination has a u-shape. We find that increased appropriability, as measured by Lerner?s index of patent scope and effectiveness of patents in a line of

Handbook of Entrepreneurship Research, 2010

International Handbook Series on Entrepreneurship, 2005

This article offers an argument for how genetic factors may influence the tendency of people to e... more This article offers an argument for how genetic factors may influence the tendency of people to engage in entrepreneurial activity, and describes four mechanisms through which genetic factors could operate. It also explores ways that researchers can use quantitative and molecular genetics to examine entrepreneurship, and discusses the potential implications of a genetic perspective for management research on entrepreneurship. ©

Strategic Management Journal, 2003

Many prior researchers have criticized business planning, arguing that it interferes with the eff... more Many prior researchers have criticized business planning, arguing that it interferes with the efforts of firm founders to undertake more valuable actions to develop their fledgling enterprises. In this paper, we challenge this negative view of business planning, arguing that business planning is an important precursor to action in new ventures. By helping firm founders to make decisions, to balance resource supply and demand, and to turn abstract goals into concrete operational steps, business planning reduces the likelihood of venture disbanding and accelerates product development and venture organizing activity. Empirically, we examine 223 new ventures initiated in the first 9 months of 1998 by a random sample of Swedish firm founders and provide support for our hypotheses.

Strategic Management Journal, 2008

Strategic Management Journal, 2007

We examine the attributes of technological inventions that influence their commercialization. Usi... more We examine the attributes of technological inventions that influence their commercialization. Using a unique dataset of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)-licensed patents, we show that the likelihood of invention commercialization, which we measure by the ...

Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 2008

This study examined the infl uence of genetic factors on the tendency to engage in entrepreneursh... more This study examined the infl uence of genetic factors on the tendency to engage in entrepreneurship. We found that, in the particular sample we examined, between 37 and 42 percent of the variance in the tendency of people to engage in entrepreneurship is accounted for by genetic factors. A substantial part of this variance was mediated by the psychological trait of sensation seeking, suggesting that genes affect the tendency of people to engage in entrepreneurship by affecting the distribution of sensation seeking across people.

Research Policy, 2003

The results of this study provide insight into why some universities generate more new companies ... more The results of this study provide insight into why some universities generate more new companies to exploit their intellectual property than do others. We compare four different explanations for cross-institutional variation in new firm formation rates from university technology licensing offices (TLOs) over the 1994-1998 period-the availability of venture capital in the university area; the commercial orientation of university research and development; intellectual eminence; and university policies. The results show that intellectual eminence, and the policies of making equity investments in TLO start-ups and maintaining a low inventor's share of royalties increase new firm formation. The paper discusses the implications of these results for university and public policy.