Startup size and the mechanisms of external learning: increasing opportunity and decreasing ability?

By Paul Almeida, Gina Dokko, Lori Rosenkopf. 2003

393 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract An important area of investigation in the field of entrepreneurship examines how people and organizations exploit technological opportunities. Prior research suggests that alliances, the mobility of experts, and the informal mechanisms associated with geographic co-location can present firms with useful opportunities to source technological knowledge. This paper uses insights from strategic management and organizational theory to suggest that organizational size may have an important impact on the extent of external learning, since it differentially affects the likelihood of learning via formal and informal mechanisms. Examining a cross-section of semiconductor startups, we find that external learning increases with startup size. With regard to the specific mechanisms of learning, we find that firms learn from alliances regardless of their size. For the informal mechanisms of mobility and geographic co-location, however, learning decreases with firm size. These results suggest that as startups grow, they may have increasing opportunities to access and exploit external knowledge, but their motivation (and hence ability) to learn from more informal sources may decrease.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bf9303d856b4e10e68af176e13b149c287973551

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Economics and Econometrics

In Strategy and Management

Citations in the corpus

Training commitment and performance in manufacturing SMEs: Incidence, intensity and approaches (2007, result): “These finding supports the research literature that suggests informal learning though networks is an important source of competitive advantage (for example, Almeida et al. , 2003”
Does Patent Strategy Shape the Long-Run Supply of Public Knowledge? Evidence from Human Genetics (2009, background): “Scholars have long examined the complex dynamics of knowledge production and accumulation in firms, communities, and regions ( Almeida, Dokko, & Rosenkopf, 2003; Hansen, 1999; Kogut & Almeida, 1999; Kogut & Zander, 1992).”
Knowledge Networks as Channels and Conduits: The Effects of Spillovers in the Boston Biotechnology Community (2004, background): “2003); (2) the size and mobility of the science and engineering labor pool in a region increases localized spillovers (Almeida and Kogut 1999); and (3) strategic alliances among firms increase the likelihood of such spillovers (Almeida et al. 2003).”
Knowledge flow and inter-firm networks: The influence of network resources, spatial proximity and firm size (2010, background): “suppliers, customers, collaborators and partners become more important) and less reliant on the social networks of the owners (Almeida, Dokko, and Rosenkopf 2003 ; Thorpe et al.”
A multi-level perspective on innovation ecosystems for path-breaking innovation (2017, background): “…can draw on longitudinal studies of ecosystems to identify whether and how ecosystem actors have installed deliberate learning mechanisms (Almeida, Dokko, and Rosenkopf, 2003), what the critical (events in) interactions with actors outside the ecosystem are, and whether and how these…”
(How) Do (Firms in) Clusters Create Knowledge? (2005, background): “…and clustered firms’ development they may be very important (Audretsch and Feldman, 1996; Keeble et al., 1998; Dahlstrand, 1999; Lemarie et al., 2001; Almeida et al., 2003), although Keeble et al. (1998) stress that extra-local links can be an integral part of unlocking these local resources.”
Challenges of open innovation: the paradox of firm investment in open‐source software (2006, neutral): “While the patents were often the result of basic research, contribution of a patent to the pool allowed firms to have favorable access to all of the IPR of the GSM standard, creating a cost advantage for European pool participants over potential Asian rivals (Bekkers et al, 2002).”
International Exposure Through Network Relationships: Implications for New Venture Internationalization (2013, background): “This is rather surprising as learning has been found to be largely dependent upon the informal versus formal mechanisms that exist (Almeida et al., 2003 and Anand et al., 2002).”
Mobility, Skills, and the Michigan Non-Compete Experiment (2009, background): “…scholars have examined the connection between mobility and spillovers (Stolpe 2002; Agrawal, Cockburn et al. 2006; Breschi and Lissoni 2003; Song, Almeida et al. 2003), noting that such employer-to-employer moves may facilitate knowledge transfer both locally (Almeida and Kogut 1999) and over…”
Entrepreneurship, innovation and regional growth: a network theory (2015, background): “…is considered to have become increasingly important to entrepreneurial firms, which often cannot generate internally all the knowledge necessary for innovation (Freel 2000a, 2003; Hite and Hesterly 2001; YliRenko et al. 2001; Almeida et al. 2003; Huggins and Johnston 2009, 2010; Doran et al. 2012).”