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Gino Cattani

Bio: Gino Cattani is an academic researcher from New York University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Novelty & Exaptation. The author has an hindex of 18, co-authored 61 publications receiving 2245 citations. Previous affiliations of Gino Cattani include York University & University of Pennsylvania.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is argued that individuals who occupy an intermediate position between the core and the periphery of their social system are in a favorable position to achieve creative results.
Abstract: The paper advances a relational perspective to studying creativity at the individual level. Building on social network theory and techniques, we examine the role of social networks in shaping individuals’ ability to generate a creative outcome. More specifically, we argue that individuals who occupy an intermediate position between the core and the periphery of their social system are in a favorable position to achieve creative results. In addition, the benefits accrued through an individual’s intermediate core/periphery position can also be observed at the team level, when the same individual works in a team whose members come from both ends of the core/periphery continuum. We situate the analysis and test our hypotheses within the context of the Hollywood motion picture industry, which we trace over the period 1992–2003. The theoretical implications of the results are discussed.

544 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The dissolution risk is highest when collective interfirm mobility results in a new venture within the same geographic area and the competitive saliency of the destination firm as inferred from the recipient status and its geographic location.
Abstract: This paper examines the competitive consequences of interfirm mobility. Because the loss of key members (defined as top decision makers) to competing firms may amount to a replication of a firm's higher-order routines, we investigate the conditions under which interfirm mobility triggers transfer of routines across organizational boundaries. We examine membership lists pertinent to the Dutch accounting industry to study key member exits and firm dissolutions over the period 1880--1986. We exploit information on the type of membership migration (individual versus collective) and the competitive saliency of the destination firm as inferred from the recipient status (incumbent versus start-up) and its geographic location (same versus different province). The dissolution risk is highest when collective interfirm mobility results in a new venture within the same geographic area. The theoretical implications of this study are discussed.

232 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
Gino Cattani1
TL;DR: This paper hypothesizes that (technological) performance differences are positively related to firms' stock of relevant skills and knowledge potentially available for applications other than those for which they were originally developed and the extent to which firms actually build on these skills andknowledge in new domains.
Abstract: Strategy research typically traces stable performance differences among firms to a priori heterogeneity in initial resource endowments or in expected flows of resources. The objective of this paper is to explore how this heterogeneity is created and how it affects firm technological performance. Within the framework of an evolutionary view of technological change, we develop the notion of technological preadaptation to describe that part of a firm's prior experience that is accumulated without anticipation of subsequent uses. In particular, we hypothesize that (technological) performance differences are positively related to (1) firms' stock of relevant skills and knowledge potentially available for applications other than those for which they were originally developed and (2) the extent to which firms actually build on these skills and knowledge in new domains. The empirical setting is fiber optics technology as it evolved for use in long-distance communications between 1970 and 1995. We find that "preadapted" firms that consistently leveraged their prior experience achieved higher levels of performance than did firms that did not leverage that experience or did not have prior experience. The study illustrates the importance of preadaptation in capability development and technological competition.

211 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze the performance determinants of project-entrepreneurs, namely the individuals who are responsible for launching and carrying out those projects, and they argue that project entrepreneurs' performance is related to their degree of centrality within the social network and their familiarity with the selected project-team as captured by the distribution of ties among team members.

193 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate how established firms innovate and even initiate new technological trajectories, using a longitudinal case study of Corning's invention and development of fiber optics technology.
Abstract: This article investigates how established firms innovate and even initiate new technological trajectories. We build on and expand the notion of technological speciation to describe how a new technology emerges when a firm leverages its technological knowledge into a new application domain. Current research on technological speciation does not investigate how firms accumulate the technological knowledge which they eventually redeploy into different domains. Nor does it clarify the precise role of luck (historical accidents) and foresight (strategy) in shaping the overall process. This requires a finer grained investigation of the microprocesses and evolutionary forces underlying the dynamics of technological speciation. To this end, we use a longitudinal case study of Corning’s invention and development of fiber optics technology. We focus less on testing theory and more on describing a phenomenon to generate new theoretical insight.

187 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
01 May 1981
TL;DR: This chapter discusses Detecting Influential Observations and Outliers, a method for assessing Collinearity, and its applications in medicine and science.
Abstract: 1. Introduction and Overview. 2. Detecting Influential Observations and Outliers. 3. Detecting and Assessing Collinearity. 4. Applications and Remedies. 5. Research Issues and Directions for Extensions. Bibliography. Author Index. Subject Index.

4,948 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 1998
TL;DR: The four Visegrad states (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) form a compact area between Germany and Austria in the west and the states of the former USSR in the east as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The four Visegrad states — Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia (until 1993 Czechoslovakia) and Hungary — form a compact area between Germany and Austria in the west and the states of the former USSR in the east. They are bounded by the Baltic in the north and the Danube river in the south. They are cut by the Sudeten and Carpathian mountain ranges, which divide Poland off from the other states. Poland is an extension of the North European plain and like the latter is drained by rivers that flow from south to north west — the Oder, the Vlatava and the Elbe, the Vistula and the Bug. The Danube is the great exception, flowing from its source eastward, turning through two 90-degree turns to end up in the Black Sea, forming the barrier and often the political frontier between central Europe and the Balkans. Hungary to the east of the Danube is also an open plain. The region is historically and culturally part of western Europe, but its eastern Marches now represents a vital strategic zone between Germany and the core of the European Union to the west and the Russian zone to the east.

3,056 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Polanyi is at pains to expunge what he believes to be the false notion contained in the contemporary view of science which treats it as an object and basically impersonal discipline.
Abstract: The Study of Man. By Michael Polanyi. Price, $1.75. Pp. 102. University of Chicago Press, 5750 Ellis Ave., Chicago 37, 1959. One subtitle to Polanyi's challenging and fascinating book might be The Evolution and Natural History of Error , for Polanyi is at pains to expunge what he believes to be the false notion contained in the contemporary view of science which treats it as an object and basically impersonal discipline. According to Polanyi not only is this a radical and important error, but it is harmful to the objectives of science itself. Another subtitle could be Farewell to Detachment , for in place of cold objectivity he develops the idea that science is necessarily intensely personal. It is a human endeavor and human point of view which cannot be divorced from nor uprooted out of the human matrix from which it arises and in which it works. For a good while

2,248 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Bourdieu as mentioned in this paper presents a combination of social theory, statistical data, illustrations, and interviews, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judg..., which is a collection of interviews with Bourdieu.
Abstract: By Pierre Bourdieu (London: Routledge, 2010), xxx + 607 pp. £15.99 paper. A combination of social theory, statistical data, illustrations, and interviews, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judg...

2,238 citations

01 Jan 2008
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them, and describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative.
Abstract: What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

2,134 citations