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BLENDING AND BRIDGING IN FIELD FORMATION
by
Yu-Chieh (Jade) Lo
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION)
August 2010
Copyright 2010 Yu-Chieh (Jade) Lo
Object Description
| Title | Blending and bridging in field formation |
| Author | Lo, Yu-Chieh (Jade) |
| Author email | jadelo1229@gmail.com; yu-chieh.lo.2010@marshall.usc.edu |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Management |
| School | Marshall School of Business |
| Date defended/completed | 2010-06-04 |
| Date submitted | 2010 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2010-08-14 |
| Advisor (committee chair) |
Kennedy, Mark T. Zucker, Lynne G. |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Adler, Paul S. Fiss, Peer C. Eliasoph, Nina S. |
| Abstract | Compared to the literature on the effects of organizational fields, much less is known about how early pioneers struggle for recognition and resources during the course of field formation, and how benign resource mobilization strategies, if overused, may also produce unintended consequences at both individual and collective levels. This dissertation focuses on two complementary processes in the context of field formation: blending and bridging. Important breakthroughs often come from attempts to blend elements from disparate knowledge domains, and legitimating and promoting new ideas requires skill of building new coalitions by bridging multiple “worlds” that all stand to benefit from new ideas. When blending and bridging are not balanced, however, the efforts of entrepreneurs are likely to be subject to the familiar negative consequences of blending and bridging, including unclear identity and increased coordination and evaluation costs. Proper balances of blending and bridging enable those who participate in nascent fields to manage the apparent tensions between their positive and negative consequences.; This argument is tested in two empirical studies and further expanded in a theory chapter. Using the NanoBank data on NSF grants in nanotechnology, the first essay asks how pioneers in a nascent field can use bridging strategies to overcome the liability associated with both the newness of their own ideas and the novelty of the emergent field in which they work, and how these strategies might also backfire if overused. With patent data from NanoBank, the second study inspects how a new institutional logic favoring interdisciplinary research enabled nanotechnology to emerge from the intersections of multiple knowledge domains by blending familiar elements in novel ways. Motivated by findings from these empirical inspections, I sketch a general theory about the role of blending and bridging in the process of field formation in the third essay.; Overall, I find in this research support for my argument that the struggle between “being innovative” and “being recognizable” is indeed a real tension, but not one that is irresolvable: actors in a nascent field and the emergent field itself can maintain their viability with delicate balances between novelty and familiarity, breadth and focus, and diversity and coherence. By addressing some fundamental tensions associated with blending and bridging processes in the course of field formation, this dissertation hopes to contribute to organization theory and entrepreneurship studies. |
| Keyword | field; field emergence; bridging; entrepreneurship |
| Geographic subject (country) | USA |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m3370 |
| Rights | Lo, Yu-Chieh (Jade) |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | http://www.usc.edu/isd/libraries/services/ask_a_librarian/email/ |
| Filename | etd-Lo-3886 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume48/etd-Lo-3886.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Full text | BLENDING AND BRIDGING IN FIELD FORMATION by Yu-Chieh (Jade) Lo A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION) August 2010 Copyright 2010 Yu-Chieh (Jade) Lo |
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