Seojin Kim
Hi! My name is Seojin Kim. I am an Assistant Professor of Management in the area of Strategic Management at Drexel University's LeBow College of Business. I earned my Ph.D. in Strategy & Entrepreneurship from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.
My research areas center on entrepreneurial strategy, nascent industries, and innovation. In my dissertation, I study how and why entrepreneurs of different backgrounds choose their market strategy, focusing on knowledge contexts of academic, user, and employment settings in the prosthetic limb industry. I also examine the heterogeneous value creation and capture strategies of incumbents, startups, and diversified firms in the nascent bionic prosthetic market. When assessing the firm's different strategic paths, I trace their technological investments from the industry incubation and carefully consider the contexts in which entrepreneurs and firms operate, drawing on the technological system view (e.g., Rosenberg and Arthur). Method-wise, I combine econometrics with rich historical data to identify the best explanation at play.
My research has been recognized as a finalist for the 2022 Industry Studies Association Dissertation Award and a finalist for 2020 INFORMS/Organization Science Dissertation Proposal Competition. I have won multiple grants including the Kauffman Knowledge Challenge Grant and the Strategy Research Foundation (SRF) Dissertation Grant.
My other research projects investigate the macro- and micro-level factors that impact innovation productivity, firm performance, and market creation. I utilize diverse data and methods, including quasi-experimental designs with large-scale datasets, qualitative/historical data, and textual analysis. I have investigated various innovation settings including healthcare sectors (e.g., wearable medical devices, InVitro diagnostics, and medical imaging) and patent data.
Before joining academia, I worked as a Manager at SK Telecom's Seoul headquarter where I engaged in corporate finance and investor relations. I also have short-term work experience in IBM's business consulting division and a local publishing company in Korea. These experiences affect both my research and teaching.
Research
Agarwal, R. & Kim, S. (2021). Industry Emergence: A Markets and Enterprise Perspective. In Duhaime, I., Hitt, M., & Lyles, M. (Eds.) Strategic Management: State of the Field and Its Future. Oxford University Press.
“Pre-entry knowledge contexts of entrepreneurs and market strategy”
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In preparation for submission (Dissertation Chapter)
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Abstract: I investigate whether and how the sources of entrepreneurial knowledge, including academic, user, and employee startups, may shape a new venture’s value capture strategy and subsequent performance. I use a mixed-methods approach by combining quantitative evidence with extensive fieldwork. I assemble a unique longitudinal dataset of active and inactive firms created between 1991-2017 within the prosthetic limb market. My data measures diverse sources of entrepreneurial knowledge and subsequent firm-level outcomes such as technological choice (nascent vs. standard) and product integration (component vs. final assembly). The quantitative results suggest that academic startups were most likely to choose nascent technology than all of the other types. Also, employee startups were most likely to integrate technological subcomponents into a technological system for users. Through qualitative data, I offer the best possible explanations for the statistical results.
"Creating radical technologies and competencies: revisiting interorganizational dynamics in the nascent bionic prosthetic industry"
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With Agarwal, R., & Goldfarb, B. (all authors contributed equally) [SSRN]
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Invited for the 2nd round revision at Organization Science
“Weathering a demand shock: firm downstream (non-)integration and market exit”
Lim, N., Kim, S., & Agarwal, R. Weathering a demand shock: firm downstream (non-)integration and market exit.” Strategic Management Journal, Forthcoming.
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Best Paper Proceedings, Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2020 [SSRN]
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All authors contributed equally
“The Impact of Intellectual Property Rights on Commercialization of Federally Funded Research”
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With Corredoira, R., Goldfarb, B., & Knott, AM. (all authors contributed equally) [SSRN]
