David Hsu

• Q. Chen, David Hsu, D. Zvilichovsky (2025), Inventor Commingling and Innovation in Technology Startup Acquisitions, Organization Science (forthcoming). Abstract

  We explore a form of post-acquisition integration where inventors from the target and acquiring organizations share and integrate technological and organizational knowledge while performing joint research and development. We refer to this phenomenon as “inventor commingling.” Grounded in the knowledge-based view, we posit that commingling enhances the target firm’s innovation performance by enabling the transfer of the acquirer’s organizational knowledge while preserving the target’s existing knowledge base. We explore how commingling differs from structural integration and how the two forms of integration can be combined for post-acquisition management. We posit that commingling diminishes the negative effects of structural integration, while structural integration may enhance the efficacy of commingling. Since organizational knowledge is firm-specific and cumulative, commingling efficacy should increase with acquirer commingling inventors’ tenure. To test these predictions, we assemble a large sample of acquisitions to study the effect of these forms of post-acquisition integration on acquired entity innovation outcomes. Our results support a positive commingling innovation effect, which is more pronounced under structural integration. A high degree of commingling can mitigate the negative effects of post-acquisition structural integration documented in the literature. We use direct flights between the acquisition party locations as an instrument to address the potentially endogenous process of inventor commingling. We find consistent results. Our study raises the possibility of inventor commingling as a distinct form of post-acquisition integration, which holds the potential of effectively transferring organizational knowledge and supporting post-acquisition innovation output, while sidestepping the classic post-acquisition integration autonomy tradeoff.

• Hongyuan Xia and David Hsu (Working), Exploring the Demand for External Technologies: The Roles of Appropriability and Absorptive Capacity. Abstract

  Research Abstract: Prior research on markets for technology has largely focused on the supply side (technology originators). In contrast, we examine the demand side by evaluating firm-technology variants of two established theories: (1) an appropriation-based view, where firms license to capture value from innovation, and (2) an absorptive capacity (AC)-based view, where firms license to recognize and commercialize external knowledge. We assemble a novel dataset of patent licenses disclosed by public firms, and all firms that cited the patents are at risk of licensing. We find that firms with both high general AC and technology-specific AC are more likely to license, even though high technology-specific AC alone predicts lower licensing. This suggests a contingent complementarity view of AC, which helps reconcile conflicting perspectives in the literature.

  Managerial Abstract: Firms often acquire external technologies through licensing, yet little about what drives this demand is known. We examine two motivations: (1) the desire to appropriate returns from their know-how, and (2) the ability to recognize and apply external innovations (absorptive capacity, AC). Using data on externally-sourced patent licenses disclosed by public firms, we find that licensing is more likely when firms possess both general AC and familiarity with the specific technology (technology-specific AC). However, high familiarity alone reduces licensing, suggesting a substitution effect. These findings highlight how internal capabilities shape external technology acquisition and suggest that firms should invest in strengthening AC—not just intellectual property protection—to maximize technology transfer outcomes.

• David Hsu, Po-Hsuan Hsu, Kaiguo Zhou, Tong Zhou (2024), Industry-University Collaboration and Commercializing Chinese Corporate Innovation, Management Science. Abstract

  We construct a comprehensive dataset of medium- and large-sized industrial firms and research universities in China and examine how Chinese firms’ commercialization of their technologies is related to their experience in industry-university collaboration (IUC). We propose that firms’ IUC experience constitutes an inimitable complementary asset that facilitates their technology commercialization. Our empirical analyses show that firms generate more new product sales and produce more product-oriented patents when they have more patents that are co-assigned to universities or when they have more academic publications coauthored with university staff in the past. Such relation is strengthened when firms have higher absorptive capacity, when firms are in industries that depend more on basic science, and when firms are located closer to their collaborating universities. Additional tests point out four channels through which firms’ IUC experience benefits their technology commercialization: knowledge acquisition, talent recruiting, direct technology transfers, and technological complementarity.

• Suting Hong, David Hsu, Vinay Subramanian (Working), The Evolution of U.S. Entrepreneurial and Innovation Ecosystems in Artificial Intelligence: Geographic ‘Pull’ Factors. Abstract

  What geographic pull factors shape where individuals engage in startup activity? The related literatures discuss how agglomeration forces shape the geographic locus of innovation, characterize the business environment influencing individual mobility, and suggest that local spinoffs can lead to industry clustering. To improve our understanding of why some individuals move geographies (bypassing their home social capital) to start new ventures, we evaluate three candidates: venture capital access, specialized human capital access, and co-location to access knowledge spillovers. Using startups in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry, we examine the relative empirical importance of these factors in the 2001-2018 timeframe. We find that our measures of knowledge spillover capital and human capital best explain geographic pull factors for entrepreneurship, especially after a major technological advance.

• David Hsu and Prasanna Tambe (2024), Remote Work and Job Applicant Diversity: Evidence from Technology Startups, Management Science. Abstract

  A significant element of managerial post-COVID job design regards remote work. In
  an era of renewed recognition of diversity, equity and inclusion, employers may wonder how diverse (gender and race) and experienced job applicants respond to remote job listings, especially for high-skilled technical and managerial positions. Prior work has shown that while remote work allows employee flexibility, it may limit career promotion prospects, so the net effect of designating a job as remote-eligible is not clear from an applicant interest standpoint, particularly when recruiting females and underrepresented minorities (URM). We analyze job applicant data from a leading startup job platform that spans long windows before and after the COVID-19 pandemic-induced shutdowns of March 2020. To address the empirical challenge that remote job designation may be co-determined with unobserved job and employer characteristics, we leverage a matching approach (and an alternative method which leverages the sudden shutdowns) to estimate how applicant characteristics differ for otherwise similar remote and onsite job postings. We find that offering remote work attracts more experienced and diverse (especially URM) job applicants, with larger effects in less diverse geographic areas. A discrete change in job posting to remote status (holding all else constant) is associated with an approximately 15% increase in applicants who are female, 33% increase in applicants with URM status, and 17% increase in applicant experience. Using the application data, we estimate an average estimated compensating wage differential for remote work that is about 7% of posted salaries in this labor market.

• Jaeho Kim and David Hsu (Working), Hidden Costs of Star Inventors in Organizational Innovation: Knowledge Homogenization and Obsolescence. Abstract

  We explore a potential unintended consequence of research and development (R&D)
  teams involving star inventors. While the innovation process often requires experimentation and
  even questioning conventional wisdom, collaborators of star inventors may instead exhibit
  deferential behavior to stars and follow stars’ proven knowledge to mitigate uncertainty in the
  innovation process. This may lead to homogenized team knowledge, and this convergent rather
  than divergent exploration process toward stars’ knowledge may be ultimately detrimental to
  organizational innovation due to knowledge obsolescence. Within the context of startup inventors
  in the evolving fabless semiconductor industry, which experienced technological shifts during our
  period of study (1975-2020), we provide supportive empirical evidence based on a difference-indifferences design. We conclude with managerial implications of this research.

• Vinay Subramanian and David Hsu (Working), Acquisitions as a Venture Scaling Strategy: Adolescent Firms and Innovation Outcomes. Abstract

  When adolescent ventures choose their scaling strategy for longer-run innovation outcomes, is organic- or acquisition-led-growth preferable? The multifaceted reasons managers may choose an acquisitive path, only some of which are observed and measured, makes this question difficult to address. We study U.S. firms undergoing an initial public offering (IPO) between 1975 and 2016 and track the extent to which they conduct acquisitions, pre- and post-IPO. We use firms’ patenting activity as proxies for innovation. We address endogenous selection of acquisition strategies by employing difference-in-differences and instrumental variable methods and estimate a 6 – 10% boost in innovation for acquisition relative to organic scaling. These results contrast with naïve analyses, which suggests a negative or null effect of acquisitions on innovation.

• David Hsu and Jeffrey Kuhn (2022), Academic Stars and Licensing Experience in University Technology Commercialization, Strategic Management Journal. Abstract

  We examine the process by which university technology transfer offices (TTOs) allocate internal resources, which provides insight into technologies offered for commercialization to the private sector. Using detailed administrative records of patenting decisions and outcomes by one prominent U.S. research-based university’s TTO over a 30-year period, we analyze the performance of invention disclosures by academic stars and by inventors with prior licensing experience. We find that the lead inventor’s academic prominence (but not licensing experience) predicts patent application filing, while licensing experience (but not academic prominence) predicts patent impact and commercialization success. We supplement this descriptive analysis with follow-up interviews and empirical evaluation of possible mechanisms for this seemingly outsized role of academic stars.

• Suting Hong, Kaihao Guo, Haipeng Zhang, David Hsu (Working), When Do Ventures Founded by Research-oriented Entrepreneurs Outperform?. Abstract

  Holders of a STEM doctoral degree are increasingly pursuing non-academic careers for a variety of reasons. There has been special interest in one such path, founding new ventures, because of its potentially disproportionate impact on societal and economic outcomes. We explore the conditions under which “research-oriented” founders (operationalized as those who have published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature) outperform otherwise observationally similar non-research-oriented founders in venture performance. Our contingency-based inquiry helps reduce tension in the literature which has found seemingly conflicting results on performance advantages to such academic founders. We also extend the human capital construct to the founding team and investor level, as such participants may assist in deficiencies in knowledge and expertise at the individual level. Our data consists of a matched sample of several thousand ventures across a wide span of industrial fields. Our results suggest that research-oriented founders’ ventures outperform when they start ventures in their field of expertise, especially so when they are academically accomplished. Furthermore, for research-oriented founders starting ventures outside of their domain of expertise, recruiting co-founders with complementary functional backgrounds can compensate, though the same statement cannot be said about investors with complementary skills. We end by discussing policy implications.

• Matt Marx and David Hsu (2022), Revisiting the Entrepreneurial Commercialization of Science: Evidence from ‘Twin’ Discoveries, Management Science, 68 (), pp. 1330-1352. Abstract

  What factors shape the commercialization of academic scientific discoveries via startup formation? Prior literature has identified several contributing factors but does not address the fundamental problem that the commercial potential of a nascent discovery is generally unobserved and potentially confounds inference. We construct a sample of over 20,000 “twin” scientific articles, which allows us to hold constant differences in the nature of the advance and more precisely examine characteristics that predict startup commercialization. In this framework, several commonly-accepted factors appear not to influence commercialization. However, we find that teams of academic scientists whose former collaborators include “star” serial entrepreneurs are much more likely to commercialize their own discoveries via startups, as are more interdisciplinary teams of scientists.

• All Research from David Hsu »

Past Courses

• MGMT3880 - Venture Acceleration Lab

  This Lab emphasizes experiential learning in evaluating and contributing to �live� startup ventures. The goal of the Lab is to accelerate the development of ventures by providing a structured curricular setting in which mentors with industry expertise as operators and investors provide guidance to full-time venture founders. Undergraduate and MBA students learn through witnessing these interactions and through helping ventures structure their value creation and capture strategies. The latter is facilitated via instructor-led classes on focused venture development concepts. This unique Lab therefore brings together communities which rarely mix: startup founders, enrolled students as potential venture �joiners� and consultants, venture mentors, and technical/academic specialists.

• MGMT6110 - Managing Est Enterprise

  This course is about managing large enterprises that face the strategic challenge of being the incumbent in the market and the organizational challenge of needing to balance the forces of inertia and change. The firms of interest in this course tend to operate in a wide range of markets and segments, frequently on a global basis, and need to constantly deploy their resources to fend off challenges from new entrants and technologies that threaten their established positions. The class is organized around three distinct but related topics that managers of established firms must consider: strategy, human and social capital, and global strategy.

• MGMT6120 - Managing Emerg Entrprse

  This course is about managing during the early stages of an enterprise, when the firm faces the strategic challenge of being a new entrant in the market and the organizational challenge of needing to scale rapidly. The enterprises of interest in this course have moved past the purely entrepreneurial phase and need to systematically formalize strategies and organizational processes to reach maturity and stability, but they still lack the resources of a mature firm. The class is organized around three distinct but related topics that managers of emerging firms must consider: strategy, human and social capital, and global strategy.

• MGMT8010 - Entrepreneurship

  MGMT 801 is the foundation coures in the Entrepeurial Management program. The purpose of this course is to explore the many dimensions of new venture creation and growth. While most of the examples in class will be drawn from new venture formation, the principles also apply to entrepreneurship in corporate settings and to non-profit entrepreneurship. We will be concerned with content and process questions as well as with formulation and implementation issues that relate to conceptualizing, developing, and managing successful new ventures. The emphasis in this course is on applying and synthesizing concepts and techniques from functional areas of strategic management, finance, accounting, managerial economics, marketing, operations management, and organizational behavior in the context of new venture development. The class serves as both a stand alone class and as a preparatory course to those interested in writing and venture implementation (the subject of the semester-long course, MGMT 806). Format: Lectures and case discussions

• MGMT8880 - Venture Acceleration Lab

  This Lab emphasizes experiential learning in evaluating and contributing to �live� startup ventures. The goal of the Lab is to accelerate the development of ventures by providing a structured curricular setting in which mentors with industry expertise as operators and investors provide guidance to full-time venture founders. Undergraduate and MBA students learn through witnessing these interactions and through helping ventures structure their value creation and capture strategies. The latter is facilitated via instructor-led classes on focused venture development concepts. This unique Lab therefore brings together communities which rarely mix: startup founders, enrolled students as potential venture �joiners� and consultants, venture mentors, and technical/academic specialists.

• MGMT8900 - Advanced Study-Ind

• MGMT8930 - Advanced Study-Emgt

• MGMT8970 - Global Modular Course A

  Special course arranged for Wharton MBA students, focused on global business, management and innovation.

• MGMT9370 - Entrep Research Seminar

  The seminar seeks to expose students to theoretical and empirical perspectives on entrepreneurship research. We will focus on the main questions that define the field and attempt to critically examine how, using a range of methodologies, researchers have approached these questions. As we review the literature, we will seek to identify promising research areas, which may be of interest to you in the context of your dissertation research. In addition to addressing the content of the received literature, we will examine the process of crafting research papers and getting them published in top tier journals. Towards that end we will characterize the key elements of high impact papers and review the development process of such studies. Students are expected to come fully prepared to discuss and critique the readings that are assigned to each class meeting (see details below). Each student will serve as the discussion leader for one or more of the class sessions. Discussion leaders are expected to critically review several articles, identify new insights in the research that is being reviewed and evaluate its contribution to the literature, position the articles within the literature on the subject matter, raise discussion question, and act as the discussion moderator for the class session. Each discussion leader is asked to prepare a one or two page summary of the assigned papers which includes a statement of the main research question(s), the methodology, data set if any, summary of findings, a commentary with your thoughts on the reading, and proposed discussion questions. Prior to each class, the discussion leader will meet the instructor to help plan the class meeting. Towards the end of each class meeting, each student will be asked to articulate a research question that emerged from the session and describe the research design used to investigate the issue.

• MGMT9390 - Ent Innov Research

  This quarter-length course explores key topics at the intersection of entrepreneurship and innovation. While the course primarily draws from established theory and empirics from management and economics, it will also include discussions of emerging phenomena in this rapidly evolving field. We will begin by reviewing the basic properties of ideas that uniquely shape the sources and dynamics of entrepreneurship and innovation. Subsequently, we will explore innovation-related challenges and opportunities for startups. Special focus will be placed on research application in which students design and present their own research proposal broadly in the area of entrepreneurship and innovation. Students are highly encouraged to take this course in sequence with MGMT 937.

• Mack Institute for Innovation Management at Wharton, research grants, 2023
• Wharton Teaching Excellence Award, 2022
• Management Science Meritorious Service Award, 2010
• Alfred P. Sloan Industry Studies Fellowship ($45,000), 2009
• Edward B. and Shirley R. Shils Term Assistant Professor of Management, The Wharton School, Univ. of Pennsylvania, 2008
• MIT Sloan School Fellowships: David & Lindsay Morgenthaler Fellowship; CS Holding Doctoral Fellowship; and Wilson Fellowship, 2001
• Outstanding master’s thesis on commercializing university technologies, Harvard Univ., Kennedy School of Government, 1996

• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Awards Sloan Industry Studies Fellowships, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation - 02/04/2008
• Getting the Right Mix, Nature - 06/29/2006
• What’s the Best Commercialization Strategy for Start-ups?, MIT Sloan Management Review - 04/24/2002

Knowledge @ Wharton

• Understanding AI’s Impact on Productivity, GDP, and Federal Debt, Knowledge @ Wharton - 09/19/2025
• Yahoo’s Global Head of B2B Marketing, Sponsorships, and Events, Shannon Shae Montoya, Knowledge @ Wharton - 09/18/2025
• Breaking Down Records, Rankings, and Coaching With NFL Analytics, Knowledge @ Wharton - 09/17/2025
• Google Antitrust Ruling, Market Competition, and the Future of Search, Knowledge @ Wharton - 09/17/2025
• What’s Behind the Endless Breakup-Merger Cycle?, Knowledge @ Wharton - 09/16/2025
• Is Housework Holding Back Wage Equality?, Knowledge @ Wharton - 09/16/2025
• How Subjectivity Affects Stock Prices and Firm Valuations, Knowledge @ Wharton - 09/16/2025
• The Luxury of Counterfeits | John Zhang, Knowledge @ Wharton - 09/16/2025
• A Transformational Gift for Quantitative Finance at Wharton, Knowledge @ Wharton - 09/15/2025
• Expanding Retirement Portfolios With Alternative Investment Options, Knowledge @ Wharton - 09/12/2025