Seojin Kim
Hi! My name is Seojin Kim. I am currently a Postdoc Associate at UMD's Ed Snider Center for Enterprise and Markets. I earned a Ph.D. in Strategy & Entrepreneurship from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland in 2021. I will be joining Drexel University's LeBow College of Business as an Assistant Professor of Management starting Fall 2023.
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, with a focus on knowledge contexts of academic, user, and employment settings. I also examine heterogeneous competitive advantages of incumbents, startups, and diversifiers, based on how their capabilities are matched with the newfound opportunities afforded by radical technology. When assessing the firm's competitive advantage, I carefully consider the contexts in which entrepreneurs and firms operate, drawing on the technological system view. I combine econometrics with historical narratives to identify the best explanation at play.
My dissertation has been recognized as a finalist for the 2022 Industry Studies Association Dissertation Award and for 2020 INFORMS/Organization Science Dissertation Proposal Competition and supported by 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. For these projects, I primarily use quasi-experimental designs with large-scale datasets, often complemented with qualitative/historical data. I use the contexts of healthcare sectors or patenting activities.
Before joining academia, I worked as a Manager at SK Telecom's headquarter in Seoul 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., & Moeen, M. (2021). (authors contributed equally) Leveraging Private enterprise: incubation of new industries to address the public sector’s mission-oriented grand challenges. Strategy Science, 6(4), 385-411. [Link to the paper]
Industry Emergence: A Markets and Enterprise Perspective
With Agarwal, R
In Duhaime, I., Hitt, M., & Lyles, M. (Eds.) Strategic Management: State of the Field and Its Future. Oxford University Press.
“Pre-entry knowledge of entrepreneurs and market strategy”
In preparation for submission to Organization Science (Dissertation Chapter)
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 competencies for radical technologies: revisiting “incumbent-entrant” dynamics in the bionic prosthetic industry"
With Agarwal, R., Goldfarb, B. (Based on Dissertation Chapter) [SSRN]
1st R&R at Organization Science
“Weathering a demand shock: firm downstream (non-)integration and market exit”
Lim, N., Kim, S., & Agarwal, R. (authors contributed equally) Weathering a demand shock: firm downstream (non-)integration and market exit” Strategic Management Journal, Forthcoming
Best Paper Proceedings, Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2020 [SSRN]
“The Impact of Intellectual Property Rights on Commercialization of Federally Funded Research”
With Corredoira, R., Goldfarb, B., & Knott, AM. (authors contributed equally)
Under review at Research Policy
[SSRN: click here]
Let’s Connect
3330 Van Munching Hall, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742
seojin[at]umd.edu
