Jaeho Kim

Doctoral Student

Contact Information

Primary Email:
kjaeho@wharton.upenn.edu

office Address:
2036 SH-DH
3620 Locust Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104

Overview

Jaeho Kim conducts research on strategies for fostering technological innovation by entrepreneurial individuals, firms, and ecosystems. His present work addresses the structures for interfirm collaboration in innovation ecosystems and the practices for the development of human capital in technology firms. Prior to joining Wharton, Jaeho worked as a researcher at Harvard and MIT. Jaeho received his MS in Economics at Tufts University and BA in Economics with a minor in Mathematics at Konkuk University.

Research

Exequiel Hernandez, Jaeho Kim, Elena Kulchina, “Immigrants and the Assignment of Expatriate Managers: Evidence from South Korean Multinational Companies.
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.
Hongyu Xiao, Andy Wu, Jaeho Kim (2020), Commuting and innovation: Are closer inventors more productive?, Journal of Urban Economics. Abstract
We estimate the causal effect of workplace–home commuting distance on inventor productivity. We construct a novel panel of U.S. inventors with precisely measured workplace–home distances and inventor-level productivity. Our identification strategy exploits firm office relocations as exogenous variation in the commuting distance of inventors at the firms. We find a significant negative effect from commuting distance on inventor productivity: every 10 km increase in distance is associated with a 5% decrease in patents per inventor–firm pair per year and an even greater 7% decrease in patent quality. The highest-performing inventors suffer more from increased commuting distance. We discuss the implications of our findings in the light of recent trends around telecommuting and remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jaeho Kim and Andy Wu (2019), Extending the role of headquarters beyond the firm boundary: Entrepreneurial alliance innovation, Journal of Organization Design. Abstract
Prior research on corporate headquarters (CHQ) characteristics identifies the impact of CHQ location and composition on the innovation outcomes of internal subsidiaries. However, given that external strategic alliances with high-tech entrepreneurial firms represent a key source of innovation for the corporation, corporations must also consider how their choices of CHQ location and composition affect the innovation outcomes of these partners. In a study of 36 incumbent pharmaceutical corporations in 377 strategic alliances with 143 VC-backed biotechnology startups, we leverage detailed hand-collected data on CHQ locations and functions to estimate the effect of the CHQ on the innovation performance of the corporations’ entrepreneurial alliance partners. We find that a 1,000-km decrease in CHQ–partner distance leads to an increase of 28 forward citations for the alliance partner, i.e., a 1% decrease in the distance is associated with a 1.7% increase in innovation performance. We find that the co-located presence of the corporation’s R&D function at the CHQ attenuates the benefit of CHQ–partner proximity, particularly for alliances structured for horizontal collaboration at the same part of the value chain. This study contributes to the literatures on both CHQ design and technology alliances.

Teaching

Past Courses

MGMT1010 - Intro To Management
We all spend much of our lives in organizations. Most of us are born in organizations, educated in organizations, and work in organizations. Organizations emerge because individuals can't (or don't want to) accomplish their goals alone. Management is the art and science of helping individuals achieve their goals together. Managers in an organization determine where their organization is going and how it gets there. More formally, managers formulate strategies and implement those strategies. This course provides a framework for understanding the opportunities and challenges involved in formulating and implementing strategies by taking a "system" view of organizations,which means that we examine multiple aspects of how managers address their environments, strategy, structure, culture, tasks, people, and outputs, and how managerial decisions made in these various domains interrelate. The course will help you to understand and analyze how managers can formulate and implement strategies effectively. It will be particularly valuable if you are interested in management consulting, investment analysis, or entrepreneurship - but it will help you to better understand and be a more effective contributor to any organizations you join, whether they are large, established firms or startups. This course must be taken for a grade.

Activity

Latest Research

Exequiel Hernandez, Jaeho Kim, Elena Kulchina, “Immigrants and the Assignment of Expatriate Managers: Evidence from South Korean Multinational Companies.

All Research