Melody H. Chang

RESEARCH + PUBLICATIONS

• Founders' pre-entry knowledge and the heterogeneous returns to accelerator participation

  Abstract

  Research Summary

  While startup accelerators often benefit founders and their ventures, these gains may not be uniform. We examine how founders' pre-entry knowledge—the cumulative education, industry experience, and entrepreneurial exposure that teams acquire prior to launching their startups—shapes the heterogeneous returns to accelerator participation. We propose two potential mechanisms driving these returns: knowledge compensation, whereby accelerators fill gaps in basic knowledge and competencies, and knowledge complementarity, whereby accelerators amplify the absorption and deployment of expert knowledge. Using data from 6723 startups and their founding teams, we find evidence in support of the complementarity mechanism. Our findings also suggest that the returns to accelerator participation are contingent on the alignment between founders' pre-entry knowledge and program design.

  Managerial Summary

  While startup accelerators aim to level the entrepreneurial playing field, we find that founders with substantial pre-entry knowledge and experience tend to gain more from participation in these programs than novice entrepreneurs, potentially widening startup performance gaps. Program design also appears to play a key role. While specialized and unstructured programs offer value for seasoned entrepreneurs by building complementary knowledge, structured and generalist programs offer some, albeit limited, opportunities for less-experienced teams to build foundational skills. These findings underscore the need for tailored programming that aligns with participants' learning needs. For program designers and policymakers, these findings suggest investing in diverse formats to support varied founder profiles. For entrepreneurs, they highlight the importance of selecting programs that complement and build upon their team's prior knowledge.

  Author[s]

  • Melody H Chang
  • Valentina A Assenova

  Publication Date

  10.01.2025

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• Women and Minority-Owned Businesses in Regulation Crowdfunding

  Abstract

  Author[s]

  • Melody H Chang

  Publication

  U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

  Publication Date

  04.01.2024

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• Cascading Innovation: R&D Team Design and Performance Implications of Mobility

  Abstract

  Research Summary

  Given the high cost of external hiring and uncertainty related to performance benefits, how can organizations foster an environment that maximizes the post-mobility performance of external hires and their collaborators? In this article, I posit that R&D team design is an important factor that could shape the post-mobility performances of both groups. Building on the interfirm mobility, innovation, and teams literatures, I argue that technological knowledge diversity within teams and across teams could differently impact innovation performance. Analyzing 63,976 interfirm moves of engineers and scientists, I find that the post-mobility performances of external hires and teammates are conditioned by team design. A high level of within-team diversity improves the performances of both groups, while a high level of across-team diversity hurts their innovation outcomes.

  Managerial Summary

  In the war for talent, firms often offer premium wages to source external hires. Yet there have been unclear expectations about the post-mobility outcomes of these hires and the implications for team performance. To better assess the value of hiring, managers should look beyond the performance of external hires and also consider team member performance. In the context of knowledge production activities, external hires, on average, experience an improvement in innovation performance after they move. Working with an external hire reduces the productivity of immediate collaborators but leads to more breakthrough innovations with greater technological impact. Most importantly, the performances of external hires and their teammates can be further improved by effectively designing R&D teams. Recomposing teams such that a high level of diversity exists within a team but minimal divergence across teams creates an environment that appears to enhance post-mobility innovation activities.

  Author[s]

  • Melody H Chang

  Publication

  Strategic Management Journal

  Publication Date

  05.01.2023

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• The Evaluation of Founder Failure and Success by Hiring Firms: A Field Experiment

  Abstract

  Organizations tout the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship. Yet, when hiring it remains unclear how they evaluate entrepreneurial human capital—namely, job candidates with founder experience. How hiring firms evaluate this experience—and especially how this evaluation varies by entrepreneurial success and failure—reveals insights into the structures and processes within organizations. Organizations research points to two perspectives related to the evaluation of founder experience: Former founders may be advantaged, due to founder experience signaling high-quality capabilities and human capital, or disadvantaged, due to concerns related to fit and commitment. To identify the dominant class of mechanisms driving the evaluation of founder experience, it is important to consider how these evaluations differ, depending on whether the founder’s venture failed or succeeded. To isolate demand-side mechanisms and hold supply-side factors constant, we conducted a field experiment. We sent applications varying the candidate’s founder experience to 2,400 software engineering positions in the United States at random. We find that former founders received 43% fewer callbacks than nonfounders and that this difference is driven by older hiring firms. Further, this founder penalty is greatest for former successful founders, who received 33% fewer callbacks than former failed founders. Our results highlight that mechanisms related to concerns about fit and commitment, rather than information asymmetry about quality, are most influential when hiring firms evaluate former founders in our context.

  Author[s]

  • Melody H Chang
  • Tristan L Botelho

  Publication

  Organization Science

  Publication Date

  01.01.2023

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