Over the last few decades, we have seen an enormous evolution in the financial services industry driven by technology innovations. Indeed, we cannot imagine the current financial system without electronic fund transfers, ATMs, and Internet banking among many other innovative implementations. In...

This dissertation is composed of three essays. I look at the role of two different but critical factors in shaping entrepreneurial outcomes: individual level career history and the institutional context. My work spans two outcomes in particular: individual decisions to choose high-tech...

(cont.) that threaten to disappear cause decision makers to invest more effort and money in order to keep these options open, even when the options themselves seem to be of little interest. The last experiment provides initial evidence that the mechanism underlying the tendency to keep doors...

The long-run effect of banner advertisements is among the most complex topic in the internet world. Media spending on online marketing has grown from $3 billion in 1999 to $9 billion in 2004. Forecasts (Jupiter Research 2005) expect this growth to double in the next five years. The proportion of...