Professor David Obstfeld, a CRITO faculty associate and a faculty member in the Strategy group at The Paul Merage School of Business, recently received a $322,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study organizational innovation. Entitled “Brokerage, Social Networks, Knowledge-Based Innovation,” it is sponsored by the Innovation and Organizational Change, Sociology, and Law and Social Science directorates of the NSF.

Professor Obstfeld focuses on how knowledge-intensive social processes associated with organizational change and innovation unfold at the microsocial level, and ultimately how they link to firm adaptation, alliance formation, firm founding, and strategic advantage at the macrosocial level. His work draws on economic sociology, knowledge-based organizing, and innovation literatures to introduce several mechanisms and constructs involving combinatorial action, knowledge articulation, creative projects, and collective action that bring new insight to strategy and organization theory. His research aims to introduce a new model of organizational action, agency, and leadership.

Professor Obstfeld’s NSF grant will investigate how emergent combinations of social networks, knowledge, and resources lead to innovation within and across organizations, with special attention to brokerage activities that facilitate these combinations. Research in organization theory, strategy, and sociology recognizes the importance of social combinations to innovation, entrepreneurship, and firm competitiveness, but we know little about the social processes and interpersonal skills underlying the creation of such combinations and how they are fostered on the ground. Recent studies on global competition suggest that successful organizations foster collaboration across departmental, firm, and national boundaries. To be successful in the global economy, businesses will derive competitive advantage from focusing on innovation in business models.

The study will explore three key questions: 1) How do social networks, individual knowledge, and resources combine and lead to organizational innovation? 2) To what extent does participation in innovation also lead to promotion within a firm? 3) How do these relations vary within and across different firms? Ethnography, comparative case studies, and a two-stage social network study will be used in multiple organizations differing in size and product/service offering to answer these questions. Research findings will advance organizational and strategy theory as well as identify practices that managers can use to foster innovation.

Prior to his academic career, he served as Director of Training and Development at The Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae). He is a member of the Academy of Management, American Sociological Association, and the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.



(CRITO Research Spotlight, November 2006)

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