BRINGING INDIVIDUALS BACK IN: THE EFFECTS OF CAREER EXPERIENCE ON NEW FIRM FOUNDING.

Because of methodological and theoretical obstacles, research on organizational foundings has largely focused on societal and population level explanations. This paper takes the view that understanding firm foundings also requires linking to micro-level processes. We suggest that careers are an important mechanism linking individual-level processes to firm foundings. The career experiences of potential founders impact organizational foundings by influencing expectations of the liability of newness. We test our explanation on the population of inventions patented by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology over the 1980-1996 period and examine the effect of inventors' prior experiences on the likelihood that an invention will be commercialized through the founding of a new organization.

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