Taking leaps of faith: Evaluation criteria and resource commitments for early-stage inventions
Successfully developed academic inventions have the potential to spawn new technological domains, form the basis of thriving business ventures, and improve the well-being of society. However, evaluating whether an early-stage scientific invention truly has such potential is extremely difficult, and...
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sg-smu-ink.lkcsb_research-70852020-04-01T02:58:44Z Taking leaps of faith: Evaluation criteria and resource commitments for early-stage inventions KIM, Phillip H. Reddi KOTHA, FOURNÉ, Sebastian P. L. COUSSEMENT, Kristof Successfully developed academic inventions have the potential to spawn new technological domains, form the basis of thriving business ventures, and improve the well-being of society. However, evaluating whether an early-stage scientific invention truly has such potential is extremely difficult, and financially backing such inventions is highly risky. And yet, organizations and their evaluators still back some of these inventions with resources for further development. We investigate this puzzle to pinpoint how and why evaluators decide to offer resource commitments at early stages, despite the red flags raised using standard evaluation criteria. Many academic inventions need these initial resources to dispel concerns regarding their commercial feasibility, so evaluators need to take a leap of faith with their support to prematurely avoid eliminating high-potential opportunities. We tested our theory using text analysis on nearly 700 invention evaluation reports written by a university’s technology transfer experts. Our results revealed that evaluators backed inventions based on their feasibility (overcoming doubt and assessing maturity) and desirability (background familiarity and scientific complexity). Using the context of the research laboratory, our study insights can be applied to many management situations in which early-stage opportunities are assessed for resource commitments under high uncertainty. 2019-02-01T08:00:00Z text application/pdf https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/6086 info:doi/10.1016/j.respol.2019.02.004 https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/lkcsb_research/article/7085/viewcontent/Taking_leaps_of_faith__Evaluation_criteria_and_resource_commitmen.pdf http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business eng Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University early-stage scientific inventions opportunity evaluation criteria high-risk opportunities text analysis resource commitments entrepreneurial action Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Strategic Management Policy |
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early-stage scientific inventions opportunity evaluation criteria high-risk opportunities text analysis resource commitments entrepreneurial action Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Strategic Management Policy KIM, Phillip H. Reddi KOTHA, FOURNÉ, Sebastian P. L. COUSSEMENT, Kristof Taking leaps of faith: Evaluation criteria and resource commitments for early-stage inventions |
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Successfully developed academic inventions have the potential to spawn new technological domains, form the basis of thriving business ventures, and improve the well-being of society. However, evaluating whether an early-stage scientific invention truly has such potential is extremely difficult, and financially backing such inventions is highly risky. And yet, organizations and their evaluators still back some of these inventions with resources for further development. We investigate this puzzle to pinpoint how and why evaluators decide to offer resource commitments at early stages, despite the red flags raised using standard evaluation criteria. Many academic inventions need these initial resources to dispel concerns regarding their commercial feasibility, so evaluators need to take a leap of faith with their support to prematurely avoid eliminating high-potential opportunities. We tested our theory using text analysis on nearly 700 invention evaluation reports written by a university’s technology transfer experts. Our results revealed that evaluators backed inventions based on their feasibility (overcoming doubt and assessing maturity) and desirability (background familiarity and scientific complexity). Using the context of the research laboratory, our study insights can be applied to many management situations in which early-stage opportunities are assessed for resource commitments under high uncertainty. |
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KIM, Phillip H. Reddi KOTHA, FOURNÉ, Sebastian P. L. COUSSEMENT, Kristof |
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KIM, Phillip H. Reddi KOTHA, FOURNÉ, Sebastian P. L. COUSSEMENT, Kristof |
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KIM, Phillip H. |
title |
Taking leaps of faith: Evaluation criteria and resource commitments for early-stage inventions |
title_short |
Taking leaps of faith: Evaluation criteria and resource commitments for early-stage inventions |
title_full |
Taking leaps of faith: Evaluation criteria and resource commitments for early-stage inventions |
title_fullStr |
Taking leaps of faith: Evaluation criteria and resource commitments for early-stage inventions |
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Taking leaps of faith: Evaluation criteria and resource commitments for early-stage inventions |
title_sort |
taking leaps of faith: evaluation criteria and resource commitments for early-stage inventions |
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Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University |
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2019 |
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https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/6086 https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/lkcsb_research/article/7085/viewcontent/Taking_leaps_of_faith__Evaluation_criteria_and_resource_commitmen.pdf |
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