Economic Sociology of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Abstract

While research on innovation and entrepreneurship has been primarily focused on high-tech industries, the phenomenon of creating new products and organizations is not confined to high-growth industries. Oftentimes, sociological studies based on less conventional settings (i.e., non-high-tech settings) provide invaluable insights for innovation and entrepreneurship research. This symposium aims to discuss recent works that study innovation and entrepreneurship from the theoretical angle of economic sociology using unique settings. The four presentations share close theoretical connections, while each presentation uses a unique entrepreneurship phenomenon from the beer market to Broadway performances to crowdfunding to the juvenile product market. We expect the symposium will provide a good opportunity for the scholars to learn about the benefits of each of the unique settings to derive theoretical and practical implications. Breaking Out Without Selling Out: Overcoming Identity-Based Constraints to Market Expansion Presenter: Minjae Kim; Rice U. Old Wine in New Bottles: Why Market Intermediaries Dislike Boundary-Spanners Presenter: Heeyon Kim; Cornell U. Presenter: Xuege (Cathy) Lu; Cornell U. Away from the Crowd? Specialization of VC Investments in the Equity Crowdfunding Era Presenter: Yuan Shi; Cornell SC Johnson College of Business User Before Entrepreneur: When User-motives Can Signal Commitment to Customers Presenter: Hyejun Kim; HEC Paris Presenter: Jaekyung Ha; EMLYON Business School