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• Article | Management Science | October 2016

  Looking Across and Looking Beyond the Knowledge Frontier: Intellectual Distance and Resource Allocation in Science

  Kevin J. Boudreau, Eva Guinan, Karim R. Lakhani and Christoph Riedl

  Selecting among alternative innovative projects is a core management task in all innovating organizations. In this paper, we focus on the evaluation of frontier scientific research projects. We argue that the "intellectual distance" between the knowledge embodied in research proposals and an evaluator's own expertise systematically relates to the evaluations given (and consequent resource allocation). We empirically evaluate effects in data collected from a grant proposal process at a leading research university in which we randomized the assignment of evaluators and proposals to generate 2,130 evaluator-proposal pairs. We find evaluators systematically give lower scores to research proposals closer to their own areas of expertise and to highly novel research proposals. We interpret the empirical patterns in relation to a range of theoretical mechanisms and discuss implications for policy, managerial intervention, and allocation of resources in the ongoing accumulation of scientific knowledge.

  Keywords: knowledge; innovation; novelty; evaluation; resource allocation; Resource Allocation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Innovation and Management; Science-Based Business; Experience and Expertise;

  Citation:

  Boudreau, Kevin J., Eva Guinan, Karim R. Lakhani, and Christoph Riedl. "Looking Across and Looking Beyond the Knowledge Frontier: Intellectual Distance and Resource Allocation in Science." Management Science 62, no. 10 (October 2016).  View Details

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• Chapter | Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 16 | 2016

  Innovation Experiments: Researching Technical Advance, Knowledge Production and the Design of Supporting Institutions

  Kevin J. Boudreau and Karim R. Lakhani

  This paper discusses several challenges in designing field experiments to better understand how organizational and institutional design shapes innovation outcomes and the production of knowledge. We proceed to describe the field experimental research program carried out by our Crowd Innovation Laboratory at Harvard University to clarify how we have attempted to address these research design challenges. This program has simultaneously solved important practical innovation problems for partner organizations, like NASA and Harvard Medical School, while contributing research advances, particularly in relation to innovation contests and tournaments.

  Keywords: Organizational Design; Research; Knowledge; Innovation and Invention;

  Citation:

  Boudreau, Kevin J., and Karim R. Lakhani. "Innovation Experiments: Researching Technical Advance, Knowledge Production and the Design of Supporting Institutions." In Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 16, edited by William R. Kerr, Josh Lerner, and Scott Stern, 135–167. National Bureau of Economic Research, and University of Chicago Press, 2016.  View Details

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• Article | RAND Journal of Economics | Spring 2016

  Performance Responses to Competition Across Skill-Levels in Rank Order Tournaments: Field Evidence and Implications for Tournament Design

  Kevin J. Boudreau, Karim R. Lakhani and Michael E. Menietti

  Tournaments are widely used in the economy to organize production and innovation. We study individual contestant-level data from 2,796 contestants in 774 software algorithm design contests with random assignment. Precisely conforming to theory predictions, the performance response to added contestants varies non-monotonically across contestants of different abilities, most respond negatively to competition, and highest-skilled contestants respond positively. In counterfactual simulations, we interpret a number of tournament design policies (number of competitors, prize allocation and structure, divisionalization, open entry) as a means of reconciling non-monotonic incentive responses to competition, effectively manipulating the number and skills distribution of contestants facing one another.

  Keywords: Competition; Innovation Strategy;

  Citation:

  Boudreau, Kevin J., Karim R. Lakhani, and Michael E. Menietti. "Performance Responses to Competition Across Skill-Levels in Rank Order Tournaments: Field Evidence and Implications for Tournament Design." RAND Journal of Economics 47, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 140–165.  View Details

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