Talk presented at Academy of Management 2015 PDW on “Crossing the Theory-Practice Chasm: Translating Research Results for Practitioners”

1. 1
Joining Phenomena
to Theory
“Crossing the TheoryPractice Chasm” PDW
Academy of Management 2015
Joel West
Professor, Innovation & Entrepreneurship
August 7, 2015

2. 2
Lure of Phenomena
Phenomena (esp. new ones) can be exciting
• Fun to research
• Emic approach: easier to understand, talk to managers
• Interesting for students and external stakeholders
• “Sexy” topic for academic readers & reviewers
• Potential for novel contribution*
Nobody loves your stories as much as you do!
• Reviewers always want you to answer: “so what?”
• What are the managerial implications?
• Or contributions to academic theory?
* See Murray S. Davis, “That’s Interesting!” (1971)

3. 3
Careers Inform Research
• Industry career in software
• Student programmer (1976-79), engineer (1980-87)
• Entrepreneur, manager, engineer (1987-2002)
• Academic career studying high-tech firms
• Doctoral student (1994-2000), post-doc (2000-02)
• Faculty: SJSU (2002-2011), KGI (2011- )
• Doctoral student papers
• West (1995): Japanese software copyright
• West (1996): Japan’s Internet policy
• West (2000): origins of US, Japan, EU cellphones
• West & Dedrick (2000): Japanese PC standards

4. 4
1. Open Source Software
• Interest: paradox of profiting from opennenss
• Started with a conference paper
• West & Dedrick (2001)
• West (RP 2003) ††
• Kwan & West (chapter 2005)
• West & Gallagher (R&D Mgt 2006) ††
• West (2007)
• West & Dedrick (2008)
• Dedrick & West (chapter 2008)
• West & O’Mahony (I&I 2008) †, ††
• West & Lakhani (I&I 2008) ††
† Rejected from a special issue
†† Published in a special issue

5. 5
2. 3-D printing
• Interest: low entry barriers in 3D printing
• Started with a special issue paper
• West & Kuk (TFSC 2016):†† case study of market leader
• West & Greul (chapter 2016): “maker” movement
• Greul, West & Bock (wp 2015):† crowdfunding
• Bock, West & Greul (wp 2015): user entrepreneurs
† Rejected from a special issue
†† Published in a special issue

6. 6
3. NSF Project
Pending NSF award for 3 year project
• Interview data (Joel West)
• Survey data (Paul Olk of U. Denver)
Reviewers
• “The proposal addresses a new model”
• “This proposal identifies something new”
• “[X] is a relatively new phenomenon, and as a result
relatively little is known”
Success studying phenomena begets success
• “The two PIs are well qualified to perform the analysis.”

7. 7
“So What?”
Phenomena are great, but others ask “so what?”
• You must show how this generalizes to other contexts
Guest Editor: “How open is open enough?” 2002
• “Both reviewers note the lack of ‘theoretical bite’ in your
paper [which] leads Reviewer 2 to question the value of
your contribution.… The paper needs better positioning in
the literature.”
Rev: “…lead market for Shannon Theory,” 2007
• “This is a paper that has very rich data but needs a lot of
work to be done on the theorizing front.”

8. 8
“So What?” (2)
Review: “… Apple’s iPhone,” 2008
• “The weakness of this paper lies in the lack of a clear,
overarching research question, and the lack of explanation
on any theoretical framework.”
Review: “… MakerBot … in 3D printing,” 2014
• “[you] do not bring both together, the (missing) theory
with the empirical evidence to derive important
implications.”
You must explain its broader applicability
• To get published…
• To get cited…

9. 9
Recommendations
1. Always think about the potential “so what”
• When you design the study
• Before and while going into the field
• As you submit to a journal
• Verify data actually support your claimed contribution
2. Re-use prior theory, methods and measures
3. Find collaborators with complementary skills
• Identifying and understanding “sexy” phenomena is valued
• Find co-authors with better theory or methods
• Learn from them!