Actors who are involved in innovation face a large, diverse range of – often conflicting – interests from stakeholders in many areas of business and society. Innovations can only succeed if they are aligned with societal demands and supported by a range of factors, such as regulation and technical infrastructures. 

Through three studies, this dissertation shows how standardisation helps balance these interests and create foundations for new technologies. The results reveal (1) how standards emerge in highly complex and dynamic processes which may simultaneously rely on coordination in markets, committees, and/or governments to shape emerging technologies. They show (2) a range of strategic options for influencing these processes’ outcomes, which are available to companies and other actors. This dissertation also shows (3) how these options can be integrated into managing technology development at the company- and industry levels. Doing so helps ensure that innovations, standards, and regulation are aligned, thus supporting a technology’s market introduction. Finally, the dissertation (4) identifies specific strategies that companies follow with regards to the choice of forum where they engage in standardisation, revealing different priorities in firms’ activities. 

Altogether, this dissertation shows standardisation to be key to achieving the balance of interests that is required for innovations to prosper. Standardisation allows companies and other actors to establish an equilibrium of interests that sets that stage for innovation.

https://repub.eur.nl/pub/114519/EPS2019473LIS9789058925312-Embargo.pdf

Setting the Stage for Innovation: Balancing Diverse Interests Through Standardisation

markdown‘What makes an entrepreneur?’ is a fundamental question for economics, management, and psychology researchers. The present thesis addresses the definition of ‘the entrepreneur’ by investigating the roles of psychological (Part I: Chapters 2, 3, and 4) and biological (Part II: Chapters 5 and 6) traits in entrepreneurship. This interdisciplinary setting is a result of the limitations of the traditional ‘homo economicus’ perspective, where rational individuals are utility maximizing decision makers. 
The present thesis contributes to the field of entrepreneurship by focusing on the psychology of the entrepreneur, using concepts like overconfidence, optimism, positive affect, and negative affect, as well as the biology of the entrepreneur, using concepts like behavior and electrophysiology. It also contributes to the field of psychology by examining why some psychological concepts are problematic in one person (patient) but beneficial in another (entrepreneur) as well as to the field of biology, especially electrophysiology, with null findings despite of analyzing large samples and while small samples report significant findings. 
Of course, psychology and biology could play a role in many occupations. Thus, with the present thesis, entrepreneurship is not underlined, rather it is used as a proof of concept. Future research should not just further develop the understanding of the role of psychology and biology in entrepreneurship, but also investigate other manifestations of economic behavior and outcomes.

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Essays at the Intersection of Psychology, Biology, and Entrepreneurship : Verslagen op het snijvlak van psychologie, biologie en ondernemerschap

markdownOver the last few years, we have experienced an increase in online shopping. Consequently, there is a need for efficient and effective product search engines. The rapid growth of e-commerce, however, has also introduced some challenges. Studies show that users can get overwhelmed by the information and offerings presented online while searching for products. In an attempt to lighten this information overload burden on consumers, there are several product search engines that aggregate product descriptions and price information from the Web and allow the user to easily query this information. Most of these search engines expect to receive the data from the participating Web shops in a specific format, which means Web shops need to transform their data more than once, as each product search engine requires a different format. Because currently most product information aggregation services rely on Web shops to send them their data, there is a big opportunity for solutions that aim to tackle this problem using a more automated approach. This dissertation addresses key aspects of implementing such a system, including hierarchical product classification, entity resolution, ontology population and schema mapping, and lastly, the optimization of faceted user interfaces. The findings of this work show us how one can design Web product search engines that automatically aggregate product information while allowing users to perform effective and efficient queries.

Intelligent Information Systems for Web Product Search

markdownThis dissertation extends existing knowledge on the perception and pursuit of product quality. Our nuanced findings identify overlooked motivational, perceptual, and structural drivers of perceived product quality. The first chapter examines an underexplored self-related motive that determines whether consumers choose inferior or superior products for themselves. We show that consumers with low self-esteem gravitate towards relatively inferior products because they strive to verify their negative self-views. The third chapter elucidates how consumer expertise, or knowledge, shapes perceptions of product quality. Specifically, we show that being knowledgeable entails benefits (“blessing of expertise”) but also costs (“curse of expertise”). Knowledgeable consumers enjoy elite products more than novices, but are less able to enjoy mundane products. In the second chapter, we examine what may cause producers to release lower quality products. By examining the motion picture industry as a case study, we highlight that arbitrary industry-set constraints on product length can hinder the product development process and may cause filmmakers to release movies that fail to appeal to consumers. 
This research has important managerial implications for professionals in the area of marketing. From a theoretical point of view, this dissertation extends the field’s understanding as to what causes consumers to perceive products as being lower or higher quality, and how choosing these products may serve self-related motives. Moreover, this research contributes to literature on product development processes. Our inquiry sets the stage to further examine a crucial, yet underexplored, driver of product quality: the interplay of production and post-production.

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Essays on Product Quality

In this thesis, we develop new stochastic models for the performance evaluation of several highly state-of-the-art warehousing systems that, in particular, adequately describe and predict the consequences of variability in, e.g. order arrivals, and picking times on the performance of a warehousing system. Stochastic models provide an indispensable tool for this task and have already proved to be extremely valuable for areas such as manufacturing, communication, and computer systems. Also for warehousing systems, the stochastic models provide valuable guidance in the rapid comparison of key features of different design alternatives and allow operations to be optimized in order to meet prespecified performance targets.

/pdf/stochastic-models-for-order-picking-systems-5frurrfzc3.pdf

Stochastic Models for Order Picking Systems

markdownSummary

The importance of information systems to organizations continues to grow. Large sums of money are invested in information system (IS) projects. However, many IS projects fail to meet their targets or even fail completely. In the effort to successfully control such projects, there appears to be relatively little focus on the people who are actually making the decisions for the project. Prior research has shown that these decision makers aren’t always perfectly rational and that they may (consciously or subconsciously) use heuristics (mental shortcuts) which can lead to systematic biases and irrational decision making. Such biases can result in project escalation where resources continue to be devoted to a failing project despite the presence of information which indicates that the project is in trouble. 

In this dissertation, several biases are studied which thus far have remained (mostly) unexplored as potential causal factors of project escalation. In two experiments it was tested whether, ceteris paribus, a difference in the name of a project could influence decision making preferences. The results of these experiments indicate that project names can lead to an overall more positive or negative view of the project (Chapter 2) and that they are capable of drawing decision makers’ attention towards specific project attributes (Chapter 3). The outcomes of our study on the effects of differences in construal levels show that decision makers with a higher construal level are more likely to escalate commitment to a project (Chapter 5). Because the construal level of decision makers can be influenced by factors that are completely unrelated to the project, this implies that even these types of factors can indirectly influence the likelihood of project escalation. In addition, this dissertation also includes a study on a previously known causal factor of project escalation, framing, but applies it in a novel manner (Chapter 4). The results of the text analysis process, based on interviews with managers, suggest that there is a strong link between the natural framing usage of managers and the view that they have of a project. This implies that the framing usage of managers could provide valuable additional information about their underlying project view. 

The studies in this dissertation demonstrate that factors which at first sight may seem innocent or unimportant, are quite capable of influencing the likelihood of project escalation. In fact, even factors that are completely unrelated to the project appear to be capable of indirectly influencing project decision making. These findings underline the importance of not only focusing on charecteristics of the project and the organizational context but also on the potential biases of the decision maker in order to obtain a more complete view when evaluating projects.

/pdf/biases-in-project-escalation-names-frames-construal-levels-3yakopi4vy.pdf

Biases in Project Escalation: Names, Frames & Construal Levels

Undesirable framing effects in information systems projects: Analysis of adjective usage in IS project business cases

This study explores how project names may influence the tendency to escalate commitment through two experiments. Our findings from Experiment 1 show that a positive project name evokes positive affective reactions to the project. These, in turn, are associated with a greater willingness to continue a failing project. Results from Experiment 2 show that a technological project name can similarly evoke more positive affective reactions and a greater willingness to continue but only for decision makers with high technology readiness. For decision makers with low technology readiness the effect was reversed.

Nick Benschop

Papers

Biases in Project Escalation: Names, Frames & Construal Levels

Undesirable framing effects in information systems projects: Analysis of adjective usage in IS project business cases

The Effect of Project Names on Escalation of Commitment in Information Systems Projects