Anche l'Academy of Management premia Giada Di Stefano
Il Best Dissertation Award – Technology and Innovation Management Division, assegnato a Giada Di Stefano, è la ciliegina sulla torta di una memorabile spedizione della Bocconi PhD School all'Academy of Management Annual Meeting (12-16 Agosto 2011).
Di Stefano, che lo scorso giugno ha ricevuto dalla Provincia di Milano anche il premio Isimbardi 2011 per giovani talenti, era sia nella cinquina finale del premio della divisione Technology and Innovation Management sia tra i sette finalisti del premio della divisione Business Policy and Strategy (le altre due divisioni dell'Academy of Management sono Organization Behaviour e Organization Theory). Dottorata della Bocconi PhD School, Di Stefano sta per inaugurare la sua carriera accademica come assistant professor all'HEC Paris.
Elena Novelli, un'altra recente dottorata della Bocconi PhD School che ora lavora alla University of Bath, era finalista per la divisione Business Policy and Strategy, mentre Carmelo Cennamo, assistant professor alla Bocconi e dottorato dello IE, era un altro finalista della divisione Technology and Innovation Management.
Segue un abstract della tesi di dottorato di Di Stefano, Knowledge, Innovation, and Social Norms in Creative Industries: Three Essays.
Abstract. Can decentralized institutions protect innovation-related knowledge when property rights are lacking? Recently scholars have proposed that social norms can substitute for legal protection and facilitate knowledge transfer.
In my dissertation, I use a scenario-based field experiment to test these claims and explore the conditions under which norms are effective. First, I evaluate the relative predictive power of two alternative explanations - social norms and intellectual property strategies - and the conditions under which they act as complements or substitutes. Second, I assess the effect of geographical clusters on norms and information transfer. Third, I focus on the role of enforcement for holding social norms in place, by investigating when and why individuals are more likely to sanction norm violations.
My findings show that norms may play a role in governing the use of transferred information, by either substituting for or complementing strategic mechanisms. I find support for the idea that the protection provided by social norms enhances the exchange of information among clustered competitors. Finally, I show that a party's propensity to sanction an offense is driven by the severity and visibility of the violation, the reputation of the violator, and the existence of an exchange relationship with the violator.
I believe my research has the potential to make a valuable contribution. A better understanding of how information flows when it cannot be legally protected is critical to both theory and practice. Convincing evidence that norms protect innovation from misappropriation could help explain why some industries such as fashion, gourmet cuisine, and music maintain high levels of innovation despite operating in weak appropriability regimes. Most of all, I provide a more complete validation and an extension of the role played by social norms in protecting intellectual property. Firms are more willing to trade know-how if they expect their counterparts to use it properly.