PUBLISHED AND WORKING
PAPERS
My research
focuses on how social structure influences technology entrepreneurial processes
and outcomes. Most of my research uses the
lens of institutional theory to examine entrepreneurial processes. I also pay attention to the role of status
and formal structures and their influence on entrepreneurship in technology
intensive contexts.
I.
PUBLISHED, FORTHCOMING, AND PROVISIONALLY ACCEPTED PAPERS
How does institutional
prestige affect the ability of an organization to commercialize novel
technology?
Sine, W.D., Shane, S., & DiGrigorio, D. 2003.
The Halo Effect and Technology Licensing: The Influence of Institutional Prestige on the
Licensing of University Inventions. Management Science, 49: 478-496.
Sociologists
and organizational theorists have long claimed that the processes of knowledge
creation and distribution are fundamentally social. Following in this tradition, we explore the
effect of institutional prestige on university technology licensing. Empirically, we examine the influence of
university prestige on the annual rate of technology licensing by 102
universities from 1991 to 1998. We show
that institutional prestige increases a university’s licensing rate over and
above the rate that is explained by the university’s
past licensing performance. Because
licensing success positively impacts future invention production, we argue that
institutional prestige leads to stratification in the creation and distribution
of university-generated knowledge.
How do institutional
structures and processes shape the diversity of technologies used by new
ventures?
Sine, W.D., Haveman, H.,
& Tolbert, P. 2005. Risky Business?
Entrepreneurship
in the New Independent-Power Sector. Administrative Science Quarterly,
50: 200-232.
We compare the effects of emergent institutions in a new industry on the founding
rates of organizations using risky novel technologies and those using
less-risky established technologies.
Building on sociological research on institutions and organizations, and
psychological research on risk and decision making, we propose that the
development of institutions that decrease the risk associated with a new sector
has a stronger effect on the founding rates of firms using novel technologies
than on firms using established technologies, because decreases in sector-wide
risk have bigger impacts on behavior when total risk (sector-specific and
technology-specific) is high. The
aggregate effect of reducing sector-wide risk is to increase technological
variation among new ventures. The
development of institutions that legitimize particular technological forms, on
the other hand, decreases variation among new ventures. In our analysis of the independent-power
sector of the electricity industry, we argue that regulative and cognitive
institutions reduced sector-wide risk.
In contrast, we argue, normative institutions directly legitimated
particular technological forms, net of their indirect influence on sector-wide
risk. Our study demonstrates how
institutional forces can alter the mix of organizations entering a new industry
and thus contribute to diversity, as well as similarity, among organizations.
Do entrepreneurs strategically create
and seek institutional endorsements? How
does endorsement seeking in a new sector vary within an organizational
population over time?
Sine, W.D., David, R.J. and Mitsuhashi,
H. From Plan to Plant: Effects of
Certification on Operational Start-up in the Emergent Independent Power Sector,
Organization Science, 18 (4): 1-17.
New organizations in emerging industries
face tremendous legitimacy related barriers that often impede them from
producing and marketing a product or service.
This paper examines the variation in endorsement-seeking behavior by
nascent firms in the emerging independent power industry. In particular we study variation in
endorsement-seeking behavior among firm’s using new vs. established technology,
an important aspect of organizational form.
Results indicate that firms strategically compensate for industry and
technology related legitimacy constraints by seeking endorsements from powerful
institutional actors. We also find that
endorsements increase the likelihood that new ventures will commence
operations.
How does formal structure influence
initial performance in new ventures in emerging technology industries?
Sine,
W.D., Kirsch, D., & Mitsuhashi, H. 2005.
Revisiting Burns and
Stalker: Formal Structure and New Venture Performance in Emerging Economic
Sectors.
This study examines the effects of three attributes of formal structure –
role formalization, functional specialization, and administrative intensity –
on the performance of new ventures in the emergent internet sector during the
years 1996-2001. Burns and Stalker (1961) argued that in dynamic economic
sectors, firms with organic structure are more effective than those with more
mechanistic structure. We suggest this
proposition does not hold for new ventures in turbulent, emergent economic
sectors. Instead, we theorize that
formal structure enhances new venture performance. We build on Stinchombe’s
(1965) argument that, unlike mature organizations, one of the key liabilities
new organizations face is a deficit of formal structure. We hypothesize that
new ventures with higher founding team formalization, specialization, and
administrative intensity will outperform new ventures with more organic
organizational structures. Our results support these hypotheses; greater role formalization,
functional specialization, and administrative intensity are linked to superior
organizational performance.
Why do franchisors choose contracts vis a vis
bureaucracy to coordinate firm activities?
Mitsuhashi, H., Shane, S. & Sine, W.D. Organizational Governance Form in
Franchising: Is Efficient Contracting Really The Explanation? (Forthcoming at Strategic Management Journal).
In this study, we examine firms’ use
of contractual, hybrid, or hierarchical governance mechanisms. We develop and test hypotheses drawn from two
competing theoretical perspectives: efficient contracting and organizational
momentum. Using longitudinal data on a
sample of business format franchisors operating in the United States, we show
that: (1) organizational momentum is a better predictor of firms’
organizational governance form than efficient contracting: and (2)
cross-sectional evidence for efficient contracting explanations for
organizational governance form is not robust to the year of investigation, firm
effects, or selection effects.
What role do
environmental jolts and institutional processes play in technology
entrepreneurship?
Sine,
W.D. & David, R. 2003. Environmental Jolts,
Institutional Change, and the Creation of Entrepreneurial Opportunity in the
U.S. Electric Power Industry. Research Policy, 32: 185-207.
The
relationship between institutional change and entrepreneurship is poorly
understood. We build theory in this area by tracing institutional change in the
Why
do institutions change?
Strang, D. & Sine, W.D. 2001. Interorganizational Institutions. Blackwell Companion to Organizations.
In this
theoretical paper we explore the antecedents of institutional change. Recognizing that past research has focused on
processes that explain institutionalization and sources of stability; in this
chapter we examine sources of instability.
In particular we review the neo-institutional literature and suggest a
number of processes that affect macro-institutional change.
How do
social movements create entrepreneurial opportunity?
Sine, W.D. & Lee, B. Tilting
At Windmills? The Environmental Movement and the Emergence of the U.S. Wind
Energy Sector (Conditionally Accepted at Administrative Science Quarterly).
Scholars and policymakers are increasingly interested in what factors
promote regional entrepreneurial activity.
We forward this agenda by examining the impact of regional technical,
normative-cultural, and political features on entrepreneurial activity in the
emerging wind energy sector 1978-1992.
Our results suggest that while political change may create opportunities
for new types of economic activity, cultural and technical characteristics
determine regional variation of entrepreneurial activity within an emerging
sector. We show that social movements
moderate the impact of the material resource environment on entrepreneurial
activity.
Lee,
B.H., & Sine, W.D. 2006.
Constructing Market Opportunities: Environmental Movements
and the Transformation of Regional Regulatory Regimes. Applied
Evolutionary Economics and Economic Geography (Cheltenham, UK and
Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar).
This article
investigates how differences in regional collective action affects state
regulatory regimes that create opportunities for new types of economic
activities to emerge. This paper contributes to current research on social
movement organizations by emphasizing the important local effects movements
have on regional economies. It contributes to research on economic geography by
taking into account the role of collective action in opportunity creation.
II. PAPERS ON REVIEW AND WORKING PAPERS
How do institutional entrepreneurs
shape institutions in an effort to create new economic sectors?
David, R.J., Sine, W.D., & Haveman,
H. Institutional
Change, Form Entrepreneurship, and the Legitimation
of New Organizational Forms. (R&R
Organization Science).
In this paper, we develop propositions about how actors can take
advantage of institutional change to promote new organizational forms. Drawing
on a strategic narrative of the early management consulting industry, we
explain how form entrepreneurs can theorize their novel organizations as
“solutions” to the “problems” arising from institutional change. We then argue
that the legitimacy of new forms can be increased when form entrepreneurs draw
on established categories of external expertise, maintain affiliations to the
loci of this expertise, cultivate ties to social elites, demonstrate
selflessness, and engage in boundary-defining collective action. This theory
building extends recent work on cultural-frame institutionalism and directs
attention to the social processes involved in new form legitimation.
We conclude with suggestions for empirical testing and a discussion of
implications for theory and practice.
How do institutional
affiliations affect growth and survival?
David, R.J. & Sine, W.D. The
Institutional Embeddedness of Management Consulting
Firms: Effects of Affiliations to Industry and Professional Associations on
Firm Growth and Survival.
We develop and test hypotheses about
the effects of affiliations to industry and professional associations on the
survival of management consulting firms. Our core argument is that these affiliations
serve as a source of organizational social capital, or channel for critical
resources and capabilities that consulting firms can use to their advantage. We
find that while affiliations generally promote survival, this relationship is
moderated by organizational size. For small organizations, a small number of
affiliations has a strong positive effect, but
marginal benefits decline with increasing affiliations. For larger
organizations, benefits are modest at small numbers but rise at higher levels
of affiliations. Our results suggest that ties to industry and professional
associations are an important way for consulting firms to manage the complex
environments they face. In particular,
small firms can use these affiliations to overcome some of the liabilities of
smallness and thereby close the “survival gap” they face with respect to larger
competitors.
What
factors determine the degradation of institutional norms?
Sine, W.D. & Tolbert, P. Determinants of Organizational Compliance
with Institutional Pressures: The Employment of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty in
Institutions of Higher Education.
Institutional
theorists argue that organizations adopt institutionalized structures in
response to normative pressures, but typically decouple these structures from
day-to-day activities in order to meet requirements of their technical
environment. Empirical studies in this
tradition, however, have focused primarily on the formal adoption of such
structures, and to a lesser extent, on their abandonment, and given relatively
little attention to understanding factors that determine the extent of
decoupling or actual implementation. We
argue that implementation is related to the vitality and long-term survival of
institutions, and thus is an important aspect of understanding institutional
processes. In this context, we offer a
theoretical analysis of the conditions that are likely to affect the degree to
which organizations implement institutionalized structures, and an empirical
examination of the determinants of the use of tenure systems for faculty
appointments as a means of testing our arguments. We find that implementation of even a highly
institutionalized structure, such as the tenure system, varies
widely and is affected by technical as well as institutional pressures.
How do social movements create
entrepreneurial opportunity?
Hiatt, S. &
Sine, W.D. Soft,
Stiff, and In Between: Social Movements, Entrepreneurial Opportunity, and the
Emergence of the American Soft Drink Industry.
There
is relatively little research that explores the effect of shifting norms,
values, and beliefs on entrepreneurial opportunity creation and exploitation
within organizational communities. Yet, because norms, values, and beliefs
largely dictate the extent to which an organization is perceived as being
legitimate, social changes can have lasting impacts on the emergence, survival,
and growth of organizations. In this paper, we present a theory that explains
how social movement organizations generate entrepreneurial activity by
inculcating new values and beliefs into the community and challenging the
taken-for-grantedness of organizational forms. We
test this theory on the American beverage industry from 1870 to 1920. We find
that by deinstitutionalizing certain organizational forms, social movement
organizations inadvertently alter population boundaries by creating
opportunities for new ventures to emerge and compete with existing firms. This
paper directs attention to the primary influence of social movement
organizations on organizational community dynamics.
What role do certifications play in the formation of new
industrial sectors?
Lee,
B., & Sine, W.D. Certifying the Harvest: The Role of
Standards-Based Certification Organizations in the Organic Food Industry.
Institutional
entrepreneurs are often at the center of efforts to forge a new market. Despite
increasing focus on how they precipitate institutional change, there has been
little research that ties their actions to market dynamics in new market
spaces. Additionally, few studies have considered the role of what we label
standards-based certification organizations in structuring these types of
interactions in new markets. To address this gap, we explore how
standards-based certification organizations, through key processes of creation
of standards, advocacy, verification of compliance, and endorsement influence
patterns of market entry and exit. Using the U.S. organic food industry as an
empirical context and drawing on state level and firm level datasets spanning a
fifteen year period (1986-2000), we show that standards-based certification
organizations stimulate entry into the market and that the certification they
provide to individual firms inhibit market exit and moderate the competitive
effects of increasing form density.
Do greater amounts of planning by
entrepreneurs increase the survival of new organizations?
Hiatt, S. & Sine, W.D. Clear and Present Danger: Political Turmoil and the
Contingent Nature of Planning on Entrepreneurial Firm Survival in
Colombia. Forthcoming in the Academy of
Management Conference Proceedings (reserved for the top 10% best conference
papers).
Strategy and
entrepreneurship researchers have long debated the usefulness of business
planning in new enterprises. While some
researchers maintain that business planning benefits entrepreneurial firms,
others contend that planning either contributes nothing or is detrimental to
firm performance and survival. The
contrasting empirical evidence that accompanies these arguments further expands
the apparent rift. In this paper, we
attempt to bridge the opposing views by taking a contingency approach to
analyzing new business planning.
Empirically, we examine 730 Colombian entrepreneurial ventures during
the period 1997-2001. The results indicate
a curvilinear relationship between planning and entrepreneurial firm
survival. We also find that increasing
political turbulence also significantly increases the likelihood of firm
failure. Our analysis demonstrates that
the effects of planning are dependent on context: political turbulence moderates the effects of
planning on firm survival, higher turbulence increases the negative effects of
planning on the new venture survival.