Organizational experience and the creation of new products for new markets

This dissertation investigates the relationship between organizational experience, capabilities, and managerial decision-making in the context of new product development. The dissertation contains three empirical essays in three different research settings. Chapter Two focuses on the organizational implications of investing in a failed technology in the flat panel display industry. The findings demonstrate that firms making investments that later fail are less aggressive in pursuing future opportunities in the same industry, and that this inertia is driven by risk-averse decision processes within the firm. Chapter Three assesses the benefits of the breadth of product development experience in the US mutual fund industry. The findings demonstrate that broader previous experience leads to an improved ability to create novel products for new market niches, but a reduced ability to create new products similar to existing products. Chapter Four investigates the role that managerial attention plays in organizational entry into the fiber optics market. The findings show that the direction of managerial attention is relevant for understanding organizational action, even when controlling for capabilities, as attention can lead to inertia or adaptation depending on the direction of attention. Together these three essays provide two primary contributions. First, this dissertation shows that the relationship between organizational experience and new product development capabilities is complicated by the choices the firm makes over time. Second, while organizational experience certainly affects capability development, experience also provides an important backdrop against which managers make resource allocation decisions. In addressing these questions, this dissertation provides insight into the ways in which organizational experience both constrains future choices and creates new possibilities for firms over time.