I cordially invite you to attend my dissertation defense scheduled on Monday, March 16th at 1.30pm in room 314, Scheller College of Business. An overview of the dissertation is included below. Copies are available upon request.

Area: Strategy & Innovation

Committee members: Alexander Oettl (chair), Peter Thompson, Frank T. Rothaermel, Pian Shu, Annamaria Conti (UNIL)

Title: Interactions and Innovation

Dissertation overview:

Interaction between individuals is especially crucial for innovation as it enables the exchange and recombination of knowledge necessary to create new or improve existing technologies, processes, or products. In my dissertation, I examine the impact of interpersonal exchange on innovation in three different contexts: neighborhoods, co-working spaces, and university laboratories. On the neighborhood-level, I analyze how the physical layout of cities affects innovation by influencing the organization of knowledge exchange. Here, I exploit a novel data set covering all Census Block Groups in the contiguous United States with information on innovation outcomes, street infrastructure, as well as population and workforce characteristics. My results suggest that variation in street network density may explain regional innovation differentials beyond the traditional location externalities found in the literature. In the second chapter (co-authored), I examine the interplay between physical proximity and other proximity dimensions in predicting technology adoption decisions at one of the largest technology co-working spaces in the United States deriving important implications for firm performance. I discuss the role of balancing physical and other proximity dimensions in promoting the diffusion of ideas within a fast-changing entrepreneurial ecosystem through organizing personal interactions. Finally, in the third chapter, I analyze the impact of exposure to an entrepreneurial lab head on the innovative output of their PhD students. Using a unique matched sample of advisors and advisees in computer sciences and engineering at a top US research university, my findings indicate important hidden costs to academic entrepreneurship that fall largely on the shoulders of PhD students. Overall, this dissertation takes an important step towards understanding how the environments of knowledge producers impact innovation via the extent to which they enable or inhibit interpersonal exchange and influence the types of interactions that occur among individuals.