Session Summary

Session Number:842
Session ID:S491
Session Title:The Impact of the Institutional Environment upon US and Japanese Firms in Three High Technology Industries
Short Title:Institutional Environment
Session Type:Theme Session
Hotel:Hyatt West
Floor:LL3
Room:Stetson E
Time:Tuesday, August 10, 1999 8:30 AM - 10:10 AM

Sponsors

TIM  (Deborah Dougherty)doughert@business.rutgers.edu (973) 353-1664 

General People

Presenter Chesbrough, Henry W. Harvard Business School hchesbrough@hbs.edu (617) 495-5037 
Presenter West, Jonathan  Harvard Business School jwest@hbs.edu (617) 495-5492 
Presenter Zucker, Lynne  U. of California, Los Angeles zucker@nicco.sscnet.ucla.edu (310) 825-9155 
Discussant Kogut, Bruce  U. of Pennsylvania kogut@wharton.upenn.edu (215) 898-1093 

Submissions

Abstract

We wish to propose a panel discussion on the topic of comparative institutional influences upon competing firms in various high technology industries. We have three presentations that examine these effects in three different high technology industries that explicitly compare US and Japanese firms. We also will have a discussant to comment on the three papers. The three industries are: hard disk drives, semiconductors, and biotechnology. The researchers are Henry Chesbrough and Jonathan West, from the Harvard Business School, and Lynne Zucker, from UCLA. Each panelist finds marked and sustained differences between US and Japanese firms in their particular industry study. We believe that this work would benefit from presenting it together to the Academy, to focus upon what more general conclusions arise from a collection of comparative industry studies. In particular, the issue of external validity of a single industry study is always present. If a number of studies in differences find similar comparative effects, though, then the issue of external validity is mitigated. Once this is addressed, the questions of what these studies collectively imply takes on greater force.