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Prof. Exequiel Hernandez (Washington University in St. Louis)

Programm 1

  • Datum: 21.05.2013
    Zeit: 17.00 - 18.30 Uhr
    Ort: Ludwigstr. 28, VG, Raum 305

Pruning and Grafting the Network: Managing the Tension between Protecting and Exploiting Strategic Knowledge

ABSTRACT: We explore how the classic dilemma between exploiting and safeguarding strategic knowledge influences network change. We focus on the considerations faced by firms as they accumulate valuable strategic knowledge. The possession of such knowledge creates opportunities to exchange for other network resources such as complementary knowledge, but also raises the risk of unwanted diffusion to competitors through the network. We demonstrate that firms seek for balance in this tension by dissolving ties that threaten unwanted leakage to competitors and, conditional on replacing risky ties with new ones, forming relationships to new partners that bring other valued resources. These additions and deletions, in turn, affect the evolution of ego network structure. Firms’ networks evolve toward greater closure as both the experience and the threat of unwanted leakage increases, but move towards greater openness as they add ties to partners with desirable characteristics. After accounting for selection and endogeneity effects in the termination and establishment of ties, we find strong support for these ideas in a longitudinal study of a German board interlock network. To capture strategic knowledge accumulation, we track firms’ experience in Eastern Europe from immediately after the sudden fall of communism in 1990 until 2003.

Programm 2

  • Datum: 22.05.2013
    Zeit: 17.00 - 18.30 Uhr
    Ort: Kaulbachstr. 45, Raum E004

Finding a Home Away From Home: Immigrants and Firm Internationalization

ABSTRACT: This study explores the effects of immigrants on the foreign expansion and performance of organizations. I propose that common country bonds to immigrants can become unique channels of knowledge, providing firms with idiosyncratic benefits in foreign places. Such connections to co-national immigrants positively affect location choice and survival through processes of local learning and knowledge transfer. I test these ideas on a sample of foreign subsidiaries established in the U.S. by firms from 27 countries between 1998 and 2003. The probability of locating operations and surviving in a state increases with the concentration of same nationality immigrants in that state, but not with the presence of immigrants of other nationalities. To highlight the knowledge-related mechanisms, I show that these effects are particularly strong for firms lacking prior experience in the country, for locations in which immigrants can help firms capitalize upon industry-specific knowledge spillovers, and for firms with highly knowledge intensive operations.


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