Research
Some articles authored or co-authored by IDeaS team members.
A New Tool for Policymakers: Mapping Cultural Possibilities in an Emerging AI Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
Date: 03 Jul 2021
Authors: Timothy Hannigan, Anthony Briggs, Rodrigo Valadao, Marc-David L. Seidel, and P. Devereaux Jennings
Publication: Forthcoming in the Research Policy journal
Abstract: Ecosystems are typically evaluated and understood using standard visible material metrics, such as new products, patents, startups, VC funding, jobs, and successful exits. Yet emerging entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEEs) provide many possibilities for members not signaled by such visible markers. Consequently, policymakers may have a difficult time making informed decisions about incentives and regulations to foster economic growth through ecosystem emergence. To address this methods and measurement issue, we conceptualize emerging systems using both cultural and material approaches to develop a comparative typology and apply it to an emerging regional ecosystem growing around artificial intelligence (AI). We render cultural and material maps using topic modeling of Twitter feeds versus well-placed others, identify strategies in each, and discuss relevant policies for enhancing EEEs to realize various economic opportunities. This method adds to policy analytics and suggests policies for building cultural infrastructure in EEEs.
Topic Modeling in Management Research: Rendering New Theory from Textual Data
Date: 15 Jul 2019
Authors: Timothy R. Hannigan, Richard F. J. Haans, Keyvan Vakili, Hovig Tchalian, Vern L. Glaser, Milo Shaoqing Wang, Sarah Kaplan and P. Devereaux Jennings
Publication: Academy of Management Annals
Abstract: Increasingly, management researchers are using topic modeling, a new method borrowed from computer science, to reveal phenomenon-based constructs and grounded conceptual relationships in textual data. By conceptualizing topic modeling as the process of rendering constructs and conceptual relationships from textual data, we demonstrate how this new method can advance management scholarship without turning topic modeling into a black box of complex computer-driven algorithms. We begin by comparing features of topic modeling to related techniques (content analysis, grounded theorizing, and natural language processing). We then walk through the steps of rendering with topic modeling and apply rendering to management articles that draw on topic modeling. Doing so enables us to identify and discuss how topic modeling has advanced management theory in five areas: detecting novelty and emergence, developing inductive classification systems, understanding online audiences and products, analyzing frames and social movements, and understanding cultural dynamics. We conclude with a review of new topic modeling trends and revisit the role of researcher interpretation in a world of computer-driven textual analysis.
What's the value of being different when everyone is? The effects of distinctiveness on performance in homogeneous versus heterogeneous categories
Date: 22 Oct 2018
Authors: Richard F.J. Haans
Publication: Strategic Management Journal
Abstract: Is moderate distinctiveness optimal for performance? Answers to this question have been mixed, with both inverted U and U‐shaped relationships being argued for and found in the literature. I show how nearly identical mechanisms driving the distinctiveness‐performance relationship can yield both U‐shaped and inverted U‐shaped effects due to differences in relative strength, rather than their countervailing nature. Incorporating distinctiveness heterogeneity, I theorize a U‐shaped effect in homogeneous categories that flattens into an inverted U in heterogeneous categories. Results combining a topic model of 69,188 organizational websites with survey data from 2,279 participants in the Dutch creative industries show a U‐shaped effect in homogeneous categories, flattening and then disappearing in more heterogeneous categories. How distinctiveness affects performance thus depends entirely on how distinct others are.
A sociocultural network approach to controlling covid-19 contagion in communities: Seven suggestions for improving policy.
Date: 5 Jul 2020
Authors: Timothy R. Hannigan, Milo Shaoqing Wang, Christopher W. J. Steele, Marc-David L. Seidel, Ed Cervantes, & P. Devereaux Jennings
Publication: Behavioral Science & Policy Association
Abstract: We showcase the usefulness of a sociocultural community network approach to covid-19 contagion. Rather than modeling the atomistic individual as a social unit in an SEIR type model, we encourage researchers and policy makers to focus on social units, such as households, which, in turn, are part of sociocultural networks in a community and embedded in regional or country culture. Contagion occurs via culturally conditioned social unit interaction in these community networks. Based on this approach and our preliminary simulation results, we offer three policy suggestions for analysts, two for policymakers, and two for practitioners.
New Structuralism and Field Emergence:The Co-constitution of Meanings and Actors in the Early Moments of Impact Investing
Date: 22 Jul 2020
Authors: Timothy R. Hannigan and Guillermo Casasnovas
Publication: Research in the Sociology of Organizations
Abstract: Field emergence poses an intriguing problem for institutional theorists. New issue fields often arise at the intersection of different sectors, amidst extant structures of meanings and actors. Such nascent fields are fragmented and lack clear guides for action; making it unclear how they ever coalesce. The authors propose that provisional social structures provide actors with macrosocial presuppositions that shape ongoing field-configuration; bootstrapping the field. The authors explore this empirically in the context of social impact investing in the UK, 2000−2013, a period in which this field moved from clear fragmentation to relative alignment. The authors combine different computational text analysis methods, and data from an extensive field-level study, to uncover meaningful patterns of interaction and structuration. Our results show that across various periods, different types of actors were linked together in discourse through ‘actor–meaning couplets’. These emergent couplings of actors and meanings provided actors with social cues, or macrofoundations, which guided their local activities. The authors, thus, theorise a recursive, co-constitutive process: as punctuated moments of interaction generate provisional structures of actor–meaning couplets, which then cue actors as they navigate and constitute the emerging field. Our model re-energises the core tenets of new structuralism and contributes to current debates about institutional emergence and change.
Design Performances: How Organizations Inscribe Artifacts to Change Routines
Date: 18 Apr 2017
Authors: Vern L. Glaser
Publication: Academy of Management Journal
Abstract: Organizations often create and employ artifacts in order to change their routines, but little is known about how artifacts can be designed to intentionally influence routine dynamics. In this paper, I present findings from an inductive, ethnographic study of how a law enforcement agency fabricated a game-theoretic artifact to modify its patrolling routine. Based on my in-depth analysis of the actions associated with creating this game-theoretic artifact, I develop a theoretical model that shows how organizational actors iteratively engage in a series of design performances to envision new sociomaterial assemblages of actors, artifacts, theories and practices. These design performances influence routine dynamics by both eliciting mechanisms of abstracting grammars of action, exposing assumptions, distributing agency, and appraising outcomes and by creating new assemblages that can be deployed in future routine performances. By revealing the generativity of design performances and sociomaterial assemblages, this empirical study contributes to our understanding of routine dynamics, performativity, and strategy tools.
Getting Counted: Markets, Media, and Reality
Date: Apr 2008
Authors: Mark T. Kennedy
Publication: American Sociological Review
Abstract: Firms that do not fit into established business categories tend to be overlooked, but new markets often form around these “misfits.” Because being seen as part of a growing population makes new populations seem real, counting them is important to mainstreaming new markets. Yet, if firms outside the mainstream are overlooked, how can they be counted? Extending the embeddedness perspective to social cognition about markets, this research exposes the media’s central role in market formation. Using a new method for extracting data about market networks from media coverage, this study demonstrates that early entrants benefit from inviting coverage that makes a few—but not too many—links to other entrants, thus helping audiences perceive an emerging category. As the market matures, however, references to rivals become unhelpful. These findings illustrate the value of a linguistic turn to empirical studies of meaning construction and the reification of social structure.
Some seminal papers related to our work.
DiMaggio, P. (2015). Adapting computational text analysis to social science (and vice versa). Big Data & Society, 2(2), 205395171560290. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951715602908
Brayne, S. (2017). Big Data Surveillance: The Case of Policing. American Sociological Review, 32. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0003122417725865
Bail, C. A., Brown, T. W., & Wimmer, A. (2019). Prestige, Proximity, and Prejudice: How Google Search Terms Diffuse across the World. American Journal of Sociology, 124(5), 1496–1548. https://doi.org/10.1086/702007
Goldenstein, J., & Poschmann, P. (2019). Analyzing Meaning in Big Data: Performing a Map Analysis Using Grammatical Parsing and Topic Modeling. Sociological Methodology, 49(1), 83–131. https://doi.org/10.1177/0081175019852762
Melamed, D., Simpson, B., Harrell, A., Munn, C. W., Abernathy, J. Z., & Sweitzer, M. (2020). Homophily and Segregation in Cooperative Networks. American Journal of Sociology, 125(4), 1084–1127. https://doi.org/10.1086/708142
Rao, H., & Greve, H. R. (2018). Disasters and Community Resilience: Spanish Flu and the Formation of Retail Cooperatives in Norway. Academy of Management Journal, 61(1), 5–25. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2016.0054
Schmiedel, T., Müller, O., & vom Brocke, J. (2019). Topic Modeling as a Strategy of Inquiry in Organizational Research: A Tutorial With an Application Example on Organizational Culture. Organizational Research Methods, 22(4), 941–968. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428118773858
Wang, S., & Vergne, J.-P. (2017). Buzz Factor or Innovation Potential: What Explains Cryptocurrencies’ Returns? PLOS ONE, 12(1), e0169556. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0169556