Raghu Garud

Verified

Raghu verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

Verified

Raghu verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Pennsylvania State University

Adopting a place-based approach to categorization, we explore how and why institutional actors in the US and the UK have categorized e-cigarettes differently, namely as tobacco products in the US and as non-tobacco consumer products in the UK. Our inquiry identified the historical contingencies generating two different perspectives informing these...

There is increasing recognition among scholars that entrepreneurs use framing to legitimize their ventures and the broader fields within which they operate. Yet, there is no unifying framework to bring together existing theoretical perspectives on entrepreneurial framing and to make sense of their underlying mechanisms. Based on an integrative revi...

There is no doubt that digital technologies are spawning ongoing innovation across most if not all sectors of the economy and society. In this essay, we take stock of the characteristics of digital technologies that give rise to this new reality and introduce the papers in this special issue. In addition, we also highlight the unprecedent opportuni...

We examine how entrepreneurs rework the temporal commitments implicated in their venture ideas when they persevere or pivot upon confronting unexpected events. To gain a deeper understanding of how entrepreneurs recalibrate temporal positioning, length, and ordering of actions and milestones, we systematically analyzed 22 episodes across five ventu...

Inspired by Herbert Simon's insights on the sciences of the artificial, there is now an effort within the entrepreneurship discipline to view entrepreneurship from a design perspective. Entrepreneurship as design draws attention to the pursuit of unfolding goals by entrepreneurs through the design of artifacts serving at the interface of a venture'...

Organizational change and innovation are central and enduring issues in management theory and practice. The need to understand processes of organization change and innovation has never been greater in order to respond to dramatic changes in population demographics, technology, stakeholder needs, competitive survival, and social, economic, environme...

What is it about the term ‘design’ that facilitates the emergence of interdisciplinary interactions even though the term may hold different meanings for those involved? To address this question, we analyzed the vocabularies, practices and orders of worth proposed by the members of an interdisciplinary Center for Design. Our analysis revealed simila...

Research Summary We explore the challenges that digital platform‐based sharing economy ventures confront in establishing legitimacy for their business models by examining the dynamics that ensued when Uber Technologies deployed its ridesharing business model in four U.S. cities. Uber entered each city to jumpstart network effects by establishing co...

Among scholars, policymakers, and practitioners, there is considerable interest in the dynamics associated with regions, including their emergence, decline, and regeneration. Such interest is well justified given the role that regions play in contributing to social wellbeing at a variety of scales—from individuals to communities and even nation-sta...

Comment on: Marti, E., & Gond, J.-P. 2018. When do theories become self-fulfilling? Exploring the boundary conditions of performativity. Academy of Management Review, 43(3): 487–508.

This a fully collaborative effort, with authors listed in reverse alphabetical order. We, the guest editors and contributors to this special issue, are indebted to Dries Faems, the Journal of Management Studies handling editor, and the many anonymous reviewers for their generous and constructive feedback.

We embrace a cultural perspective on entrepreneurship to examine the performative relationship between entrepreneurial narratives and the field discourse that unfolded during the emergence of the ‘new media’ field in New York city that came to be known as ‘Silicon Alley’. During growth, the accumulation of projective entrepreneurial narratives gene...

Among entrepreneurship researchers, there has been growing attention to questions of ontology, epistemology, and axiology. Recently, Packard (2017) advocated an interpretivist approach to entrepreneurship. In this paper, we articulate a performative approach, which offers a far more distributed and emergent view of entrepreneurship as process. In a...

Extant literature draws attention to the importance of science-push, demand-pull, and institutional-steering as mechanisms driving science-based innovations. We contribute to this literature by highlighting exaptation, which refers to the cooptation of existing traits for new functions. When applied to science-based innovations, exaptation refers t...

Prior research has examined how organizational identity can enable and constrain innovations. A complementaryliterature has examined organizational ideology as the basis for actions driving identity-enhancing innovations.We examine how organizational ideology can serve as the basis for identity-challenging innovations throughan in-depth study of th...

We examine the incident known as “Climategate” in which emails and other documents relating to climate scientists and their work were illegitimately accessed and posted to the Internet. The contents of the files prompted questions about the credibility of climate science and the legitimacy of some of the climate scientists’ practices. Multiple inve...

Prior research has examined how organizational identity can enable and constrain innovations. A complementary literature has examined organizational ideology as the basis for actions driving identity-enhancing innovations. We examine how organizational ideology can serve as the basis for identity-challenging innovations through an in-depth study of...

Organizational phenomena are dogged by a paradox that originates from the substance–process duality. Should we view phenomena as substances or as processes? We propose that there is utility in viewing them as both. Such a view, when applied to innovations and organizations, highlights the interrelationship between the two. To theorize about this in...

We begin this paper by examining the process of innovation using Usher’s model of cumulative synthesis which comprises four steps: perception of an incomplete pattern, setting of the stage, the act of insight, and critical revision and full mastery. Going beyond a synoptic view on the process of innovation implied by this sequence, Usher’s model al...

Institutional arrangements, while constituting subject positions, also relegate others to inhabit unlivable abject positions. Such a perspective on identity begs the question on the possibilities of institutional reform given that abjects must seek recourse, if any, from the very institutions that marginalized them. One source for reform can be fou...

Is it reasonable to evaluate process explanations such as effectuation using criteria that assume a world of efficient causation and linear variance? To address this question, our comment covers the following points. First, we review efforts by scholars within the management discipline to clarify what theory is and how to evaluate it. Second, we in...

What do the feathers on a bird have in common with the glass in fiber optics? The answer lies in exaptation, a concept that has been creatively repurposed (i.e., exapted) from evolutionary biology to the field of technological innovation. Inspired by this movement, we examine different kinds of biological exaptations and draw analogical links to di...

Firms introducing disruptive innovations into multisided ecosystems may confront the disruptor’s dilemma – they must gain the support of the very incumbents they disrupt. We examine how these firms may address this dilemma through a longitudinal study of TiVo, a company that pioneered the Digital Video Recorder. Our analysis reveals how TiVo naviga...

Firms introducing disruptive innovations into multisided ecosystems may confront the disruptor’s dilemma – they must gain the support of the very incumbents they disrupt. We examine how these firms may address this dilemma through a longitudinal study of TiVo, a company that pioneered the Digital Video Recorder. Our analysis reveals how TiVo naviga...

Why would anyone want to (or have to) motivate a study with hypotheses that emerged from the analyses of data and then claim support for the hypotheses? What damage is done? Is this practice unethical, and if so, where does responsibility lie? And, what can we do about this practice, if anything? Addressing these questions requires an ongoing discu...

While the term design is finding resurgence among academics and practitioners, there is still little clarity as to what it means. Our study investigates what it means to design by developing and applying a framework that examines the vocabularies used by members of a center for design at a large public university. The findings reveal similarities a...

Innovation, while important for organic growth, is not easy to sustain. Extant research shows that innovation processes are associated with ambiguity, which is problematic in organizations operating on the basis of certainty, consistency and clarity. Attempts to separate exploration from exploitation fail to harness the innovative potential contain...

We report on a longitudinal study of the emergence of the ATLAS detector, a complex technological system developed at CERN, Geneva. Our data show that the coordination of initial architectural choices was driven by cycles of contestation and justification that resulted in the creation of what we term interlaced knowledge – pockets of shared knowled...

What are the micro-processes that unfold as groups deal with unfamiliar situations such as disasters and innovations? To gain an appreciation, we offer a perspective that considers agency as an emergent property of an ecology of interactions between social and material elements driven by the efforts of multiple actors to frame the situations they c...

Management theorization has taken many twists and turns encompassing logico-scientific, appreciative theorization, practice, sensemaking, and narrative, to name a few. Now, there is utility in exploring the benefits and limits of taking a performative turn, especially because many of phenomena are about issues that will happen in the future, either...

Prior research highlights storytelling as a means for entrepreneurs to establish venture legitimacy and gain stakeholder support. We extend this line of research by examining the role that projective stories play in setting expectations and the dynamics that ensue. Such attention highlights a paradox-the very expectations that are set through proje...

We review literatures that inform entrepreneurial innovation, paying particular attention to different conceptualizations of contexts. Early research explored micro and macro approaches with some scholars taking an actor-centric perspective and others a context-centric perspective. Bridging these perspectives, different scholars proposed multilevel...

Innovation is often thought of as an outcome. In this chapter we review the literatures on innovation processes pertaining to the invention, development, and implementation of ideas, as they unfold within firms, across multi-party networks, and within communities. Moreover, we explore four different kinds of complexities associated with innovation...

Existing cognitive and cultural perspectives on values have under-theorized the processes whereby values come to be practiced in organizations. We address this lacuna by studying the emergence and performance of what we call values practices. Drawing on an analysis of the development of an honor code within a large business school, we theorize the...

Journeys to a sustainable future have become important to industry, government and research. In this paper, we examine evolutionary, relational and durational perspectives on sustainability journeys. Each perspective emphasizes different facets of sustainability – shifts in selection environments, reconfigurations of emergent networks, and intertem...

This paper employs path creation as a lens to follow the emergence of the Danish wind turbine cluster. Supplier competencies, regulations, user preferences and a market for wind power did not pre-exist; all had to emerge in a tranformative manner involving multiple actors and artefacts. Competencies emerged through processes and mechanisms such as...

We examine how digital technologies enable distributed actors to collaborate asynchronously on virtual projects. We use Wikipedia and associated wiki digital technology as the research site for our exploration. Our probe of the emergence of Wikipedia articles highlights a distinctive property of such digital technologies: in their very use, they ge...

The collective effort required to develop, build, and run the ATLAS detector has been structured as a ‘collaboration’, a distributed problem-solving network characteristic of Big Science, itself a relatively recent kind of enterprise involving big budgets, big staffs, big machines, and numerous laboratories. While ATLAS is an archetypical example o...

Innovation processes are complex. It is through local interactions among people and technologies that diverse and novel outcomes emerge. Even when governed by simple rules, such interactions can generate nonlinear temporal dynamics. Given such complexities, how might an organization sustain innovation for continued growth and vitality? Drawing on a...

Experiences that do not fit squarely into known categories pose a challenge to notions of organizational learning that rely primarily on scientific or experiential approaches. Making sense of, responding to, and learning from such unusual experiences requires reflection and novel action by organizational actors. We argue that narrative development...

Climategate – the unauthorized access to and posting of selected files pertaining to climate science – provides us with a glimpse at science in-the-making. At first glance, it appears that those who hacked into the computer servers committed a “Procrustean” crime – releasing a carefully selected collection of files in the weeks leading up to the Co...

The knowledge management literature offers knowledge 'transfer' and 'transformation' as mechanisms to tap into the diversity of knowledge that lies dispersed over organisations. However, it is difficult to transfer and transform knowledge across epistemic boundaries and, even if these processes were to unfold, specialisation could well be compromis...

Interest in the area of virtual work continues to increase with articles being written from different disciplinary perspectives—e.g., information systems (IS), management, psychology, and transportation. In this paper, we map research on virtual work to (a) understand the intellectual base from which this field has emerged, (b) explore how this fie...

We discuss the assumptions that underlie path dependence, as defined by Vergne and Durand, and then provide the outlines of an alternative perspective which we label as path creation. Path creation entertains a notion of agency that is distributed and emergent through relational processes that constitute phenomena. Viewed from this perspective, 'in...

At different points in time, energy harnessed from nuclear technology for commercial purposes has been qualified as atoms for peace, too cheap to meter, unsafe, sustainable, and emission free. We explore how these associations – between nuclear technology (a category used in a descriptive way) and qualities such as emission free (a category used in...

At different points in time, energy harnessed from nuclear technology for commercial purposes has been qualified as atoms for peace, too cheap to meter, unsafe, sustainable, and emission free. We explore how these associations – between nuclear technology (a category used in a descriptive way) and qualities such as emission free (a category used in...

Examines the internal corporate venturing process by comparing trial-and-error learning with action persistence. The model developed focuses on two key concepts – uncertainty and ambiguity. To examine numerous hypotheses that result from this model, data were gathered from a venture within a large diversified corporation that was to develop cochlea...

We explore the processes that unfolded during NASA's ill-fated Columbia shuttle flight, as members of the mission team struggled to understand the significance of an unexpected foam-shedding event. It was difficult to categorize this event in real time, as two different criteria-a concern for safety and a concern for meeting schedules-were being us...

Many technology studies have conceptualized transitions between technological generations as a series of S-curve performance improvements over time. Surprisingly, the interregnum between successive generations has received little attention. To understand what happens in the interregnum, we study the transition from 2G to 3G in mobile communications...

Sustaining innovation is a vital yet difficult task. Innovation requires the coordinated efforts of many actors to facilitate (1) the recombination of ideas to generate novelty, (2) real-time problem solving, and (3) linkages between present innovation efforts with past experiences and future aspirations. We propose that innovation narratives are c...

The traditional scientific approach to design extols the virtues of completeness. However, in environments characterized by continual change, there are challenges in adopting such an approach. We examine Linux and Wikipedia as two exemplary cases to explore the nature of design in such a protean world. Our observations highlight a pragmatic approac...

I examine how conferences can be occasions for the configuration of emerging organizational fields by describing three that I attended during the development and commercialization of cochlear implants. These conferences served as venues for a variety of activities to unfold, ranging from the exchange of information to the enactment of technological...

Innovation in a product's design can have significant implications for the organization of competencies across a production network. Currently, discussions on product designs and the distribution of competencies across production networks are based on transaction costs considerations. However, such a view does not consider the transformation costs...

The traditional scientific approach to design extols the virtues of completeness. However, in environments characterized by continual change, there are challenges in adopting such an approach. We examine Linux and Wikipedia as two exemplary cases to explore the nature of design in such a protean world. Our observations highlight a pragmatic approac...

The alphabetical ordering of authorship reflects the collaborative nature of this work and equal contribution from all authors. We thank Joel Gehman, Juha-Antti Lamberg, Michael Regnier, Maritza Salazar, three anonymous reviewers, and the AMR editors of the special issue, Daved Barry in particular, for their valuable comments.

Many technology studies have conceptualized transitions between technological generations as a series of S-curve performance improvements over time. Surprisingly, the interregnum between successive technological generations has received little attention. To understand what happens in the interregnum, we build upon a framework of technological chang...

We are delighted to introduce this special issue of Organization Studies ,t he purpose of which is to develop a deeper understanding of the concept of institutional entrepreneurship and to offer new avenues for future research. This concept has been attracting considerable attention in recent years, as was reflected in the record number of papers t...

This study uses the scientific literature as a source of data to model the contribution-spans of scientists in the field of cochlear implants. The authors provide estimates of the probability that a scientist will contribute to the field for a given length of time and the conditional probability of a scientist ceasing to contribute to the field aft...

We explore how organizations may be designed to transform themselves even as they continue to perform seamlessly on a day-to-day basis. Our inquiry frame recognizes that organizational designs comprise several elements - people, technologies, processes, and governance. Our study of an exemplary organization, Infosys Technologies, yields two insight...

In this paper we explore the mechanisms that allow securities analysts to value companies in contexts of Knightian uncertainty, that is, in the face of information that is unclear, subject to unforeseeable contingencies or to multiple interpretations. We address this question with a grounded-theory analysis of the reports written on Amazon.com by s...

We adopt a systems perspective to explore the challenges that organizations face in harnessing knowledge. Such a perspective draws attention to mutually causal processes that have the potential to generate both vicious and virtuous circles. Based on a longitudinal study at Infosys Technologies, we conclude that knowledge management involves more th...

Running headline: Harnessing knowledge for increasing returns Keywords: knowledge-based view, growth, scalability, increasing returns, structuration * Pre-print of chapter in E. Hess and R. Kazanjian (eds.) 2006. The Search for Organic Growth Cambridge University Press, 211-243. ** We thank Nandan Nilekani for encouraging us to write about Infosys....

In this paper we explore the mechanisms that allow securities analysts to value companies in contexts of Knightian uncertainty, that is, in the face of information that is unclear, subject to unforeseeable contingencies or to multiple interpretations. We address this question with a grounded-theory analysis of the reports written on Amazon.com by s...

We explore factors associated with employees’ ability to cope with the challenges of telecommuting—an increasingly pervasive new work mode enabled by advances in information technologies. Telecommuting can trigger important changes in employees’ job responsibilities, especially with respect to the degree of proactivity required to effectively work...