We highlight the emerging role of technology transfer offices as institutional entrepreneurs involved in building legitimacy for novel technologies. To illustrate this role, we carry out an in-depth study of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation's (WARF) initiatives to support the emergence...

We focus on the firm's decision to enter insular technology domains and its effect on the impact that its subsequent innovation has on the field. Insular domains are technical domains that rely heavily on prior innovations within the same domain for subsequent innovations. We show that the...

We provide evidence that young firms systematically differ from older firms in their innovative output when they enter ‘new to the firm' technological niches. We analyze data from 128 biotechnology firms since their inception and track these firms over time. Our analyses reveal that the...