Balancing The Skill Sets Of Founders Implications For The Quality Of Organizational Output

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Brief information concerning balancing the skill sets of founders implications for the quality of organizational outputs.

Strategic Organization
11(1) 35 –55
© The Author(s) 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/1476127012460944
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Balancing the skill sets of founders:
Implications for the quality of
organizational outputs
Peter W. Roberts
Emory University, USA
Giacomo Negro
Emory University, USA
Anand Swaminathan
Emory University, USA
Abstract
The jack-of-all-trades theory of entrepreneurship suggests that technically adept employees require additional
skills in order to effectively transition to the more generalist role of founder. However, it is silent about the effect
of broader skill acquisition on the quality of the outputs that new ventures produce. This silence is problematic
given ecological research that indicates how working across categories can hinder one’s performance in a focal
role. This article examines the relationship between the pattern of prior career experiences of founders in
the restaurant industry and consumer evaluations of the food that their restaurants produce. According to
this analysis of 404 Toronto restaurants, founders with more prior kitchen experience receive superior food
quality evaluations. However, their prior ownership experience – that which broadens their skill sets – has
more tenuous implications. At the extreme, food quality ratings associated with restaurant founders who also
claim to be head chefs at founding are harmed by their accumulated ownership experience.
Keywords
Entrepreneurship, founder experience, quality evaluations, restaurant industry
Entrepreneurs perform many tasks. Consider the entrepreneur of a new small restaurant. In addition
to being a good cook, the entrepreneur must be able to obtain funds, hire workers, choose location
and decor, obtain food supplies at a reasonable cost, keep books and market the restaurant. Being a
good cook is insufficient for success. (Lazear, 2004: 208)
Introduction
Lazear’s (2004, 2005) jack-of-all-trades theory of entrepreneurship suggests that individuals with
technical skills require additional capabilities to handle the broader requirements of establishing
new organizations. Because entrepreneurial roles are more general than the ones occupied by
employees and because new ventures are only as strong as the ‘weakest skill links’ of their founders,
460944SOQ11110.1177/1476127012460944Strategic OrganizationRoberts et al.
2013
Article
36 Strategic Organization 11(1)
those seeking to become entrepreneurs will tend to invest in a broader range of organizational
skills. For instance (as the above quotation suggests) technically proficient chefs must acquire
financial, human resources, marketing, and operational skills in order to effectively make all of the
decisions associated with starting new restaurants.
This theory has spawned studies that affirm the core prediction that individuals who select into
entrepreneurship tend to have invested in additional skills that balance the specialist skill sets of
employees (Silva, 2007; Wagner, 2003). While these studies validate the selection prediction of the
jack-of-all-trades theory, no one has yet looked at the effects of developing broader skill sets on the
quality of a new organization’s outputs. This question is germane given ecological research that
also focuses on experience patterns of generalists (i.e., jacks-of-all-trades) versus specialists
(Freeman et al., 1983; Hannan et al., 2007). Several studies – in different settings and at different
levels of analysis – demonstrate penalties associated with working across established market
and organizational boundaries (Hsu et al., 2009; Negro et al., 2010; Zuckerman et al., 2003). This
research suggests that accumulating additional skills might also be problematic for individuals’
performance in entrepreneurial roles.
We follow this research and ask whether the broader skill acquisition that increases the like-
lihood that individuals select into entrepreneurship has additional implications for the quality
of products and services that new ventures produce. Posing this question links the economics-
oriented jack-of-all-trades thesis with accumulating organizational research that examines
how the career backgrounds of founders influence a range of organizational outcomes.
According to this research, appropriately experienced founders leverage accumulated insights
and resources (Freeman, 1986) and produce familiar images of accountability (Baron et al.,
1999). Prior experiences within the same industry allow founders to develop appropriate skills
and contacts, to more effectively incubate their entrepreneurial ideas, and to stimulate appro-
priate organizational blueprints (Baron et al., 1999). As such, founders that ‘come from good
stock’ (Burton et al., 2002) typically launch organizations that experience superior outcomes.
In numerous studies set in a range of industries, we observe the expected positive effects of
founders’ same-industry experience on the performance of their new organizations. However,
by looking specifically at the different domains that these individuals work in as they accumu-
lated their same-industry experience, we identify potential non-linearities in this well-estab-
lished relationship.
First, however, we affirm the jack-of-all-trades prediction that technically skilled individuals
who also have more prior ownership experience – that which broadens the skill sets of specialized
employees – are more likely to become entrepreneurs. We also affirm and test the prediction that
founders with more related technical experience will launch ventures that produce higher-quality
outputs. However, because skill-broadening experiences sit outside of the technical domain of
organizations, they will tend to have more neutral effects on the quality of a new venture’s outputs.
Finally, we examine the role orientation of founders and predict that founders who also claim an
active role in the technical domain will be penalized for their accumulated ownership experience.
In other words, founders that do not fully undertake the generalist orientation of their new role are
penalized for having accumulated broader skill sets.
These expectations are tested in an analysis of food quality evaluations received by restaurants
in the city of Toronto, Canada. After describing the career experiences of restaurant founders and
how they are implicated in food quality evaluations, we summarize the data used for our analysis.
We then present our regression results. While individuals with prior ownership experience are
more likely to become entrepreneurs, these skill-balancing experiences do not improve food qual-
ity outcomes in the restaurants that they establish. In fact, when founders elect to remain close to
the technical core of the organization at founding (i.e., as head chefs in the kitchen), their prior
Roberts et al. 37
ownership experience actually impairs food quality. We conclude the article by discussing the
implications of our findings for the jack-of-all-trades theory, and for studies of entrepreneurship
and industry evolution more generally.
Theory and hypotheses
Organizations seek to garner positive evaluations from their various audiences: suppliers, clients,
customers, and critics. Business and law schools aspire to be counted among the country’s best in
the rankings of educational institutions (Elsbach and Kramer, 1996; Espeland and Sauder, 2007).
Technology firms try to appeal to technological sophisticates (Rao, 1994). Authors, film-makers,
restaurateurs, and winemakers seek favorable reactions from critics and other tastemakers (Basuroy
et al., 2003; Negro et al., 2010; Rao et al., 2003; Shrum, 1991).
When theorizing about why certain organizations are able to produce at higher quality, it is
reasonable to look toward the individuals who established them (Stinchcombe, 1965) because they
are known to have imprinting effects (Baron et al., 1999). Here, research on founders’ accumulated
career experiences largely follows Freeman’s (1986) discussion of entrepreneurs as organizational
products. His inheritance logic is evident in the recent expositions of a parent-progeny perspective
(Phillips, 2002) and in related research on spinoffs (Klepper and Sleeper, 2005), and spawning
(Gompers et al., 2005). In general, the skills required to run new ventures can be learned while
working inside existing organizations (Roberts et al., 2011b). More specifically, however, indi-
viduals have heterogeneous experiences and there is precedent for expecting the implications of
prior career experience to depend on the jobs previously held. For example, the likelihood of
becoming an entrepreneur depends on an individual’s job category within an existing organization
(Dobrev and Barnett, 2005). Moreover, when lawyers leave to establish new firms, the strength of
progeny benefits depend on whether founders were named partners, regular partners or associates
in their parent firms (Phillips, 2002).
According to Lazear’s (2004, 2005) jack-of-all-trades theory of entrepreneurship, individu-
als with experience in the core technical domain develop necessary but insufficient skills for
their subsequent transitions to entrepreneurship. Clearly, these specialist skills allow them to
appreciate the many antecedents of product quality. A law firm’s legal acumen or the techno-
logical prowess of a technology firm is associated with the work performed by employees
occupying legal or technological jobs. Similarly, wine quality is more readily associated with
the work of a winemaker (Roberts and Khaire, 2008) than with those working in what Caves
(2000) calls the ‘mundane’ organizational domains. This mapping of technical experience to
skills suggests that:
HYPOTHESIS 1: The ability of organizations to offer products/services that appeal to customers
will increase with greater experience of founders in the core domain.
The skill that comes with technical experience, however, does not fully determine who is ready
to become an entrepreneur. Rather, the central tenet of the jack-of-all-trades theory of entrepre-
neurship is that founders require additional skills to meet the requirements of their more generalist
role. A wide range of financial, human resources, marketing, and operational decisions must be
taken when starting a new business and the ‘weakest skill link’ feature of entrepreneurship (Lazear,
2004) mandates that a venture can only be as strong as the decisions made in its weakest skill
domain. As such, founders require career experiences that span organizational domains; i.e., the
lawyers and engineers who eventually become entrepreneurs should also work outside of the court-
room or laboratory before launching new ventures.
38 Strategic Organization 11(1)
Fortunately, individuals who establish new organizations have opportunities to accrue experi-
ences in these other domains. Careers evolve and individuals can be promoted out of functional
domains and into broader management or ownership positions. When lawyers make partner, they
are expected to perform less of the firm’s legal work and spend more time in marketing, sales and
relationship-management functions (Morris and Pinnington, 1998: 6). Similarly, engineers must
prepare for broader responsibilities that come from being promoted out of the technical domain
into management positions (Allen and Katz, 1986). In the restaurant industry, chefs move from
kitchen jobs into ownership positions when they want more satisfactory financial returns on their
career investments or more control over their restaurant projects (Ruhlman, 2006).
According to the jack-of-all-trades thesis, individuals who have complemented their technical
skills with experiences in these broader organizational domains are more likely to become found-
ers. While some studies have validated this selection prediction (Silva, 2007; Wagner, 2003), none
examine the implications of developing broader skill sets for the quality of a young organization’s
outputs. It has been argued that personal dispositions or limitations in the capacity for individuals
to invest in heterogeneous career experiences might lead those with more ownership experience to
also acquire technical experience that is diminished in either duration or value. Here, Åstebro and
Thompson (2011) suggest that multi-skilled individuals might be ‘hobos’ rather than jacks-of-all-
trades; their underlying desire to accumulate a variety of career experiences leads them to under-
invest in the core technical skills that are central to high-quality organizational productions.
A related question is whether the effect of accumulating experience in multiple domains has
direct implications for the quality of organizational outputs. The jack-of-all-trades theory of entre-
preneurship is (as stated) agnostic about this. Technically skilled individuals acquire experience in
other domains because they need to handle the broader commercial aspects of becoming an entre-
preneur. Thus, whereas their otherwise weaker skills will be augmented, founders’ prior ownership
experiences – those which broaden skill sets beyond the technical domain – have unclear implica-
tions for the quality of a new venture’s outputs. These effects would be positive if they allowed
individuals to vicariously contribute to and learn about a focal domain’s requirements. However,
their effects would simply be neutral if they produced insights that are irrelevant for one’s perfor-
mance in the technical domain.
This expectation hinges on individuals embracing the generalist orientation of the entrepre-
neurial role. In fact, the jack-of-all-trades theory rests on the belief that, relative to employees in
established organizations, entrepreneurs occupy more generalist roles: ‘The theory, which pre-
dicts that entrepreneurs should be generalists and that those who work for others should be
specialists, implies that human-capital investment patterns should differ between those who end
up being entrepreneurs and those who end up working for others’ (Lazear, 2004: 208). Clearly,
when establishing new organizations, some founders see a clean distinction between the techni-
cal job of the specialist employee and the broader organizational and commercial responsibilities
of the generalist founder. When generalists are unsure what specific tasks they might face, or
when they actually face multiple tasks at any one time, having a diverse skill set should be
advantageous. In a similar respect, founders who have invested in broader skill sets (and who do
not emphasize the technical core in their new ventures) have the diversity of skills suited for
these entrepreneurial roles. Because their obligations span organizational domains, they have
outlets for all prior experiences.
However, for other founders the entrepreneurial role remains linked to technical jobs. For
instance, some lawyers, scientists or restaurant chefs see founder roles as elaborations of previous
work in courtrooms, laboratories or kitchens. What happens when these entrepreneurs continue to
work actively on the operations in the technical core of their new ventures?
Roberts et al. 39
Recent insights from organization theory indicate that specialists are better able to engage audi-
ences than generalists because spanning salient categorical boundaries has adverse effects on the
development of skills that are relevant for any one category. Sellers that auction items in fewer
eBay categories subsequently complete more transactions (Hsu et al., 2009); wineries that focus on
a single vinification style receive higher quality ratings from critics (Negro et al., 2010); and res-
taurants that belong to one cuisine genre are more appealing to online reviewers than restaurants
that stretch their menu to cover multiple cuisines, especially when the styles of these cuisines are
more distinctive (Kovács and Hannan, 2010). All of this research shows how problems arise when
individuals try to reconcile incompatible experiences and skills in the context of any single market
or organizational category.
Spanning boundaries becomes problematic because it contributes to the development of inap-
propriate skills, especially when the demands of the different tasks are in clear opposition to one
another. Take Baker and Faulkner’s (1991) analysis of Hollywood film projects. Producers work
in commercial roles and are primarily responsible for attracting the requisite financial resources.
Directors and screenwriters, on the other hand, are the artists who maintain control over the
aesthetic aspects of film projects. In the film industry, technical and commercial tasks generate
conflicting demands. Fine (1996) articulates a similar juxtaposition in the restaurant industry.
Cooks and chefs work in the kitchen and focus on food quality, while owners and managers
emphasize the commercial nexus between kitchen productions and the consumers who ulti-
mately pay for the food.
When founders remain directly involved in the core domain of their new ventures. They are
more likely to encounter the compromises emphasized by recent studies on categories in mar-
kets. Given the inconsistency of tasks associated with work in different organizational domains,
the skills required to generate products of high quality will become impaired.
1
We therefore
predict that:
HYPOTHESIS 2: Greater ownership experience of founders weakens the ability of organizations to
offer products/services that appeal to customers when founders are directly involved in the core
domain.
Data and analysis
Considerable attention has been paid to organizations and entrepreneurs in the restaurant industry;
including Lazear’s (2004) own theory, Fine’s (1992, 1996) study of Minneapolis cooks and restau-
rants, and Freeman and Hannan’s (1983) early test of niche width theory. In fact, Freeman and
Hannan (1983) offer several reasons for studying restaurants, including the fact that they ‘typically
depend on local environments for capital, labor, factors of production, and especially consumers’
(1983: 1129). In their case, this localized dependence ‘simplifies the task of measuring relevant envi-
ronmental variations.’ In our case, it allows us to confidently explore the careers of the individuals
who establish restaurants and then assess the evaluations of the consumers who patronize them.
Our analysis combines two unique data sources that each provides systematic information
about Toronto restaurants. The first is the Chef and Restaurant Database (CRDB) (www.chefdb.
com). As its proprietor states, the CRDB is the product of ‘an ongoing project aimed at document-
ing the history of chefs, restaurants and restaurateurs.’ By the end of 2006, the CRDB provided
information on roughly 2100 Toronto restaurants and about the various individuals who occupied
the different jobs in each restaurant between its founding and closing. In this latter respect, the
CRDB reports on roughly 3200 individuals occupying more than 6700 different restaurant jobs.
40 Strategic Organization 11(1)
The most prolific job titles found in this database are summarized in Table 1, which also shows
how we classify each restaurant job into two different categories: kitchen and ownership.
Table 2 shows how careers evolve in the Toronto restaurant industry. David Adjey held seven
different kitchen jobs before founding Nectar in 2003. These ‘back-of-restaurant’ experiences
allow him to better understand the culinary aspects of restaurant productions. In this way, his accu-
mulated kitchen experience should enable his restaurant to produce food with greater customer
appeal. Having worked in the past as cooks or chefs provides the requisite learning opportunities
and credentials (Ruhlman, 2006).
With the high degree of mobility across the various domains of restaurant production, individu-
als might also have other restaurant experiences at the time of founding. For example, Bob Bermann
held ownership positions in two different Toronto restaurants before founding Boba in 1994. In
these positions, Bermann was ultimately responsible for setting prices and dealing with customers.
He likely also controlled workers, working conditions and labor costs and attempted to control
material costs at the input boundary of each restaurant (Fine, 1996). These experiences provided
knowledge and insights that will help to manage the interface between food production and the
customers that will ultimately consume, evaluate, and pay for that food. However, our argument
would suggest that they also took him away from the back of the restaurant and into the commer-
cial domain, which required him to be a ‘businessman’ rather than a ‘chef.’
From the CRDB, we ascertained the founders of each restaurant as well as the details of each
individual’s career experiences within the Toronto restaurant industry.
2
The former task was accom-
plished by identifying all individuals named as owners in the year of founding for each restaurant.
Once the founders were identified, we searched all previous years in the CRDB and identified the
years in which individuals held jobs in other restaurants. This information was used to calculate the
Table 1. Job titles in the chef and restaurant database
Kitchen roles Chef or executive chef
Sous chef
Executive chef
Pastry chef
Chef
Apprentice/commis
Chef de partie
Cook
Executive sous chef
Saucier
Restaurant chef
Chef de cuisine
Consulting chef
Corporate executive chef
Chef tournant
Garde manger
First cook
Station chef
Tournant
Ownership roles Co-owner or partner
Owner/proprietor
Roberts et al. 41
pre-founding experience variables; a task complicated by the fact that some individuals hold differ-
ent restaurant positions in the same year. Here, it is sensible to assume that individuals learn less
while working in one job when they simultaneously hold other jobs. We incorporated this assump-
tion by invoking Hannan et al.’s (2007) notion of partiality, which accounts for the trade-offs faced
when allocating time across jobs. When an individual holds one restaurant job in a year, her or his
‘membership’ (Hsu et al., 2009; Negro et al., 2010) equals 1 in the organizational domain associated
with that job. When she or he holds multiple jobs in the same year, it is calculated as the proportion
of jobs held in each domain in that year. The pre-founding experience measures sum each founder’s
adjusted membership in each domain over all years prior to founding.
The latter columns of Table 2 show how we constructed the experience variables. David Adjey
accumulated 10 years of kitchen experience before founding Nectar. This includes years in which
he occupied one job (e.g., at Left Bank in 1994) and those in which he occupied two jobs (e.g., at
Far Niente and Windsor Arms Hotel in 2001). These latter experiences were each divided by two
(the number of jobs occupied in the year) before being included in his 10 years of prior kitchen
experience. The calculation for David Aisenstat (founder of Ki) involved a similar adjustment for
the years in which he was an owner at both Hy’s and The Keg. Finally, because Bob Bermann
(founder of Boba) occupied the combined chef and owner positions in each of his years of restau-
rant experience, he was given credit for one half-year of kitchen experience and one half-year of
ownership experience in each year. In this way, he contributed four years of kitchen experience
and four years of ownership experience as a founder at Boba. After performing these calculations
for each individual in the founding group, we aggregated the information to create restaurant-
level founder experience variables. By summing the kitchen and ownership experience for the
individuals who adopt chef and non-chef founder roles, we end up with four restaurant-level
experience variables.
Some of the individuals who establish restaurants also elect to be head chefs at founding. In
addition to having chefs who are founders, new restaurants can hire head chefs at founding. To
Table 2. Restaurant founders and pre-founding experience
Restaurant Founder Role Kitchen experience Ownership experience
Nectar (2003) David Adjey Founder 10 years 0 years
2001–2002 Windsor Arms Hotel Executive chef 0.5+1 = 1.5 0
2001–2001 Far Niente Executive chef 0.5 0
1997–1997 Dan Aykroyd Family Personal chef 0.5 0
1995–1997 Estates of Sunnybrook Executive chef 0.5+1+0.5 = 2 0
1993–1995 Left Bank Executive chef 0.5+1+0.5 = 2 0
1991–1993 Vaughan Estate Executive sous chef 0.5+1+0.5 = 2 0
1990–1991 China Blues Sous chef 1+0.5 = 1.5 0
Boba (1994) Bob Bermann Chef-founder 4 years 4 years
1990–1993 Avocado Club Co-owner/chef (0.5+3)/2 = 1.75 (0.5+3)/2 = 1.75
1986–1990 Beaujolais Co-owner/chef (4+0.5)/2 = 2.25 (4+0.5)/2 = 2.25
Ki (2005) David Aisenstat Founder 0 years 17 years
1997– Keg Steakhouse & Bar Owner/proprietor 0 8*0.5 = 4
1988– Hy’s Owner/proprietor 0 9+8*0.5 = 13
Source: Chef and Restaurant Database.
42 Strategic Organization 11(1)
account for the experience profiles of these hired chefs (i.e., those listed as head chefs but not
founders in the year of founding) we created an additional variable that accounts for their accumu-
lated kitchen experience. A central prediction from the jack-of-all-trades theory of entrepreneur-
ship is that relative to skilled employees, founders will tend to have experiences that endow them
with broader non-technical skills. In our case, this means that relative to chefs hired at founding
(i.e., skilled employees) founders will have had more prior ownership experience. Table 3 shows
that this is indeed the case. The 449 hired chefs and 330 chef-founders have roughly the same
amount of prior kitchen experience on average. However, the chef founders have significantly (p =
0.08) more prior ownership experience.
3
Food quality
Fine’s (1996) study of cooks and restaurants shows that restaurant evaluations are primarily based
on customer experiences with the food that is produced. We test our predictions by linking these
experience variables to food quality evaluations taken from Patrons Pick and the Toronto Zagat
Guide. Patrons Pick is an annual survey of Toronto restaurant customers that reports aggregate rat-
ings on 100-point scales for several dimensions of quality, including food quality.
4
Customers who
have patronized a restaurant are asked to rate it according to the following standard: 0–25 points =
weak, 26–50 points = fair, 51–65 points = good, 66–80 points = commendable, and 81–100 points
= outstanding. All of the scores received through the mail or through the Patrons Pick website are
averaged across respondents. This produces a food quality rating for each restaurant in each annual
volume. We supplement the Patrons Pick data with an additional four years of quality information
from the Zagat Guide, which provides similar information to that published in Patrons Pick. Zagat’s
ratings are derived using a similar process but are reported on 30-point scales. We therefore adjust
each of the Zagat scores so that they correspond to the range in Patrons Pick.
5
In the models that we
report, the quality variables are the first ratings reported in either of these guides. When the first
rating appears in both sources in the same year, we calculate the average of the two.
Our regressions include several control variables. To account for factors that influence typical
quality across cuisine types, we include the average quality rating for the focal cuisine calculated
based on the full population of Patrons Pick/Zagat ratings. We also account for the different price
points that characterize the Toronto restaurant industry. Patrons Pick indicates each restaurant’s
price level, which ranges from one (under $35 from 1990 to 1998; under $40 from 1999 to 2006)
to four ($80 and over from 1990 to 1998; $120 and over from 1999 to 2006) ‘dollar signs.’ These
signs reflect the estimated cost of dinner for two, including a glass of house wine. Prices in Zagat
are reported as more precise dollar amount per single diner, and are therefore doubled and then
converted to dollar signs according to the ranges provided by Patrons Pick. Because one and two
dollar sign restaurants are virtually indistinguishable in terms of their average quality ratings they
are combined to produce a low-, middle-, and high-price segment. We include two price segment
Table 3. Experience profiles of hired chefs and founders
Hired chefs Non-chef founders Chef-founders F-statistic
Kitchen experience 3.60 years 0.77 years 3.36 years 70.94
*
Ownership experience 0.62 years 4.05 years 1.96 years 28.40
*
N 449 965 330 -
Average of prior quality 82.21 79.86 80.20 3.65
*
N 129 140 70
*p < 0.05;
†
p < 0.10.
Roberts et al. 43
dummy variables in our models, the low-price segment being the omitted category. We use the
founding year information supplied by the CRDB to create another control variable for a restau-
rant’s age (in years) when it receives its first Patrons Pick/Zagat rating.
We also control for the number of founders reported for each restaurant. More founders bring
greater information and resources to their new restaurants, along with greater conflict and coor-
dination costs since the perspectives of many decision-makers have to be reconciled. Those
commenting on differences between aesthetic and commercial demands of production suggest
that the latter may benefit from having more resources on board (Hirsch, 1972: 646–47). Others
emphasize that greater dynamism and unpredictability characterize the creative demands that
underpin the aesthetic elements of production (Lampel et al., 2000), perhaps favoring smaller
founding group size.
Our analysis begins with all restaurants with founder background information. Matching these
restaurants to those found in the Patrons Pick/Zagat sample yields observations for 404 restaurants.
As Table 4 demonstrates, the sampled restaurants differ in terms of whether they were established
by founders that elected to be chefs, and in the extent to which they hired head chefs at founding.
It also shows that the restaurants in the three founder categories were not systematically different
in terms of their average food quality ratings. This prods us to look more closely at the experience
profiles of the individuals that adopted the founder roles. Descriptive statistics and correlations
for the experience and control variables are reported in Table 5. Overall, the average for the food
quality variable is 76.67.
6
The typical founding group had chef-founders (non-chef founders) with
roughly 1.29 (0.43) years of prior kitchen experience and roughly 0.65 (3.09) years of prior
ownership experience.
Table 4. Composition of the final sample
Only
non-chef founders
Only
chef-founders
Chef and
non-chef founders
Total
a
Hired head chef N = 112 N = 67 N = 74 N = 253
No hired head chef N = 126 N = 15 N = 10 N = 151
Total N = 238 N = 82 N = 84 N = 404
Avg. food quality
= 75.84
Avg. food quality
= 77.74
Avg. food quality
= 78.00
Avg. food quality
= 76.67
a
A test for differences in average food quality across three columns cannot reject the null hypothesis. p = 0.15.
Table 5. Descriptive statistics and correlations (N = 404)
Variable Mean SD 1a. 1b. 2a. 2b. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
1a. Food quality 76.67 10.33
1b. Décor/ambiance quality 73.65 14.06 0.31
2a. Typical food quality 74.30 3.65 0.33 0.16
2b. Typical décor/ambiance quality 72.87 5.21 0.17 0.22 0.40
3. Restaurant age 6.03 7.16 ?0.37 ?0.32 ?0.11 ?0.17
4. Count of founders 1.60 0.76 ?0.01 0.08 0.03 0.06 ?0.13
5. Hired chef kitchen experience 1.25 3.23 0.08 0.25 0.02 0.17 ?0.17 ?0.11
6. Founder kitchen experience 1.72 3.46 0.21 0.13 0.05 0.15 ?0.20 0.18 0.08
7. Founder ownership experience 3.74 6.66 0.10 0.18 ?0.03 0.09 ?0.19 0.10 0.19 0.31
44 Strategic Organization 11(1)
Results
Table 6 presents a series of regression models with food quality ratings as the dependent variable.
Model 1 is an ordinary least squares regression model that includes the control variables. As
expected, food quality ratings are higher for cuisines that typically receive higher ratings and in
the two higher-priced segments of the market. Restaurants that are older when they receive their
first rating produce at lower food quality. This might be due to a diminished capacity to produce
at high quality. It may also be due to a selection effect if higher-quality restaurants tend to be
Table 6. Main regression results: Food quality
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
(OLS) (OLS) (OLS) (Heckman)

(All) (All) (High-
price)
(All)
Food quality
Constant 26.69
*
26.87
*
53.16
*
26.25
*
(8.80) (8.80) (13.13) (8.95)
Typical food quality 0.67
*
0.67
*
0.45
*
0.67
*
(0.12) (0.12) (0.17) (0.12)
Middle-price level 5.63
*
5.49
*
5.49
*
(1.00) (0.99) (0.98)
High-price level 9.65
*
9.20
*
3.52
*
9.20
*
(1.21) (1.23) (1.06) (1.21)
Restaurant age ?0.38
*
?0.36
*
?0.36
*
?0.36
*
(0.06) (0.06) (0.09) (0.06)
Count of founders ?1.05 ?1.27
*
?1.76
*
?1.29
*
(0.57) (0.58) (0.65) (0.57)
Hired chef kitchen experience ?0.21 ?0.22 ?0.19 ?0.21
(0.14) (0.14) (0.14) (0.14)
Founder kitchen experience 0.30
*
0.31
*
0.31
*
(0.13) (0.14) (0.13)
Founder ownership experience ?0.02 0.01 ?0.01
(0.07) (0.07) (0.07)
Selection equation
Constant ?0.64
*
(0.07)
Count of ratings in cuisine (’00) 0.14
*
(0.01)
Hired chef kitchen experience 0.02
(0.02)
Founder kitchen experience 0.04
*
(0.02)
Founder ownership experience 0.01
(0.01)
Adjusted R
2
0.33 0.34 0.17
Log-likelihood ?1,937.9
N 404 404 247 845
*p < 0.05.
Roberts et al. 45
reviewed right away, leaving lower-quality restaurants to be assessed by consumers at later ages.
We add the founders’ experience variables in model 2. The prior kitchen experience of founders
is positively and significantly associated with food quality ratings. However, the effect of prior
ownership experience is not significantly different from zero.
7
An F-test reveals that the estimated
ownership effect is significantly lower than the corresponding effect of prior kitchen experience
(F = 3.80; p = 0.05).
8
Roughly 61% of the restaurants in our sample compete in the middle- and high-price
segments of the market. The average amount of kitchen experience for founders in these two
segments is more than double that observed in the low-price segment, while the average owner-
ship experience is just under double. The patterns of founder experience and of the experience
effects thus can vary across price segments. Given these differences, we re-estimated model 2
focusing on the higher-priced segment and obtain roughly identical founder experience results
(see model 3).
Due to constraints on the market’s ability to process restaurant quality information (Hirsch,
1972), some restaurants are never rated in Patrons Pick or Zagat. Only 404 of the 845 restaurants
for which we have founder background information received a food quality rating during the sam-
ple period. This becomes problematic if our experience variables also influence the likelihood that
a restaurant will garner enough consumer interest to receive a food rating. This expectation is
consistent with two-stage models of customer choice developed within marketing and adopted
by economic sociologists (Phillips and Zuckerman, 2001; Zuckerman, 1999). Restaurants
whose founders have more appropriate experience should be more likely to make it into customer
consideration sets. We therefore estimate a selection model (Heckman, 1979) where the first stage
equation is the probability of having ever been rated in either Patrons Pick or Zagat. To identify
the selection equation, we leverage the fact that a cuisine’s popularity influences the likelihood that
a restaurant will be rated but not its food quality rating. We create a variable equal to the total count
of quality ratings for each of the cuisines represented in our data. This variable ranges from 1 to
976 (for Italian restaurants) and the correlation between it and the restaurants’ food quality ratings
is modest (? = 0.07).
Model 4 in Table 6 presents the results from this model. As expected, the probability of receiv-
ing a rating is positively related to the total number of reviews for the focal cuisine. Moreover, the
prior founder’s kitchen experience variable has a positive influence on the probability of being
rated. Notwithstanding this effect, the coefficient estimates in the food quality equation are
virtually identical to those reported in model 2.
Table 6 provides robust empirical support for our first prediction and affirms the weaker effects
of prior ownership experience on food quality outcomes. Our second hypothesis suggests that the
effect of prior ownership experience on food quality evaluations becomes problematic when found-
ers also claim to be head chefs at founding. To assess this prediction, we decompose each founder
experience variable into that which is associated with founders that did or did not also claim to be
head chef at founding. The results from this model are reported in Table 7.
9
Although the effect of
prior kitchen experience is estimated with less precision among non-chef founders (p = 0.11), the
positive effect of prior kitchen experience is not statistically different among chef-founders and
non-chef-founders (F = 0.04; p = 0.85). However, the adverse effect of ownership experience is
significant and significantly more pronounced among chef-founders (F = 4.80; p = 0.03). This
result supports our second hypothesis.
Before proceeding, we conduct a series of additional analyses to address potential concerns with
the results presented so far. First, the models in Tables 6 and 7 suggest that the accumulated kitchen
experience of hired chefs does not significantly influence a restaurant’s quality ratings. We present
46 Strategic Organization 11(1)
a brief discussion of this null result in the concluding section of the article. However, it is also
important that we recognize that values of zero for the hired chef experience variable occur either
when hired chefs actually have no prior experience or when restaurants do not hire head chefs at
Table 7. Founders’ prior experience broken down
Model 5
Food quality
Constant 26.73
*
(8.89)
Typical food quality 0.67
*
(0.12)
Middle-price level 5.41
*
(0.98)
High-price level 8.92
*
(1.22)
Restaurant age ?0.36
*
(0.06)
Count of founders ?1.33
*
(0.57)
Hired chef kitchen experience ?0.18
(0.14)
(Chef) founder kitchen experience 0.45
*
(0.17)
(Chef) founder ownership experience ?0.47
*
(0.21)
(Non-chef) founder kitchen experience 0.40
(0.25)
(Non-chef) founder ownership experience 0.02
(0.08)
Selection equation
Constant ?0.65
*
(0.07)
Count of ratings in cuisine (’00) 0.14
*
(0.01)
Hired chef kitchen experience 0.02
(0.02)
(Chef) founder kitchen experience 0.04
*
(0.02)
(Chef) founder ownership experience 0.00
(0.03)
(Non-chef) founder kitchen experience 0.03
(0.03)
(Non-chef) founder ownership experience 0.02
†
(0.01)
Log-likelihood ?1,935,16
N 845
*p < 0.05;
†
p < 0.10.
Roberts et al. 47
founding. To disentangle these two possibilities, we estimate a variant of model 5 that includes a
dummy variable for restaurants that did not report hiring a separate head chef at founding.
Model 5.1 (Table 8) shows the null effect of this hiring decision and the continued null effect of
hired chef kitchen experience. The predicted effects of the four founder experience variables are
virtually unchanged.
Similarly, restaurants can return values of zero for chef-founder experience either because their
chef-founders have no prior experience or because none of the founders elected to become head
chefs at founding. Model 5.2 includes a dummy variable for those observations where a restaurant
does not report having at least one chef-founder. The similar effects of the founder experience vari-
ables across models 5 and 5.2 provide further confidence in our interpretation of the data. Model
5.3 inserts a variable that similarly indicates restaurants without non-chef founders. Again, the
estimated effects of the four founder experience variables are unaffected.
As is indicated by the variable controlling for the number of founders, restaurants can be estab-
lished by groups of different sizes. In our sample, 216 restaurants were founded by lone individuals
while 188 were founded by groups of two or more. While the models in Tables 6 and 7 suggest that,
ceteris paribus, larger founding team size tends to correspond with diminished food quality, they
are silent on whether the reported experience effects depend on whether or not restaurants were
founded by groups of individuals. To assess whether these two scenarios produce different patterns
of experience effects, we created a series of interactions between a dummy variable set to unity for
Table 8. Additional analyses of food quality (All models are Heckman selection models and include all of
the control variables reported in model 5.)
Model 5.1 Model 5.2 Model 5.3
(No hired chefs) (No chef-founders) (No non-chef founders)
No hired chefs 0.76
(1.07)
No chef-founders ?1.41
(1.06)
No non-chef founders 0.77
(1.21)
Hired chef kitchen experience ?0.14 ?0.15 ?0.17
(0.15) (0.14) (0.14)
(Chef) founder kitchen experience 0.43
*
0.36
*
0.42
*
(0.17) (0.18) (0.18)
(Chef) founder ownership
experience
?0.45
*
?0.51
*
?0.49
*
(0.21) (0.21) (0.22)
(Non-chef) founder kitchen
experience
0.41 0.41 0.39
(0.25) (0.25) (0.25)
(Non-chef) founder ownership
experience
0.03 0.04 0.03
(0.08) (0.08) (0.08)
Log-likelihood ?1,934.91 ?1,934.27 ?1,934.96
N 845 845 845
*p < 0.05.
48 Strategic Organization 11(1)
multi-founder restaurants and the four founder experience variables. In an unreported model, none
of these estimated interaction effects is significant and thus their inclusion does not improve the
overall fit of the model (p = 0.93).
Finally, we address the fact that roughly 28% of the founders of the restaurants analyzed in
model 5 left before their restaurants received a quality rating from Patrons Pick or Zagat.
Aggregating these departures to the restaurant level, 12% of the chef-founders’ kitchen experience
and 9% of the ownership experience departed before quality ratings were generated and published.
The corresponding percentages for the non-chef founders are 30% and 23%. In a final unreported
model, we decomposed each founder experience variable into that which remained in the restau-
rant when food was rated and that which had left previously departed founders. Our experience
effects are clearly due to the founders who remained at the restaurant until evaluation. The coeffi-
cient estimates for the stayed-experience variables are virtually identical to those reported in model 5.
On the other hand, the joint impact of the four departed experience variables is not statistically
significant (p = 0.48).
Quality of décor/ambiance
The ownership experiences that make restaurant founders jacks-of-more-trades have no positive
impacts on food quality ratings. By itself, this finding is not at odds with Lazear’s (2004, 2005)
theory of entrepreneurship because these additional skills are assumed to lead to proficiency in
other entrepreneurial tasks. Similarly, in developing our second hypothesis, we do not assume that
accumulated ownership experience is problematic per se; only that it can be inconsistent with the
demands of kitchen work and therefore detrimental to food quality outcomes. If we switch focus to
a different dimension of customer evaluations, we might see how different classes of decisions
might benefit from prior ownership experience.
In Fine’s (1996) analysis, owners and chefs differ in their relative emphasis on commercial
versus aesthetic aspects of restaurant production. Chefs focus on food quality, while owners
emphasize the nexus between kitchen productions and the consumers that ultimate pay for the
food. This highlights a second dimension of a restaurant’s performance; one that falls closer
to the commercial domain. As ‘businessmen,’ restaurant founders must attract financial and
cultural resources that contribute to customer evaluations of décor/ambiance (Meyer, 2006).
Thus, although ownership experience contributes neutrally or negatively to food quality, we
might expect that décor/ambiance evaluations will be higher when restaurant founders have
more accumulated ownership experience. This is indeed the case in model 6 (Table 9).
10
When
the variable of interest is customer assessments of décor/ambiance, the effect of a founder’s
prior kitchen experience becomes insignificant. At the same time, the effect of his/her
prior ownership experience becomes considerably more positive and marginally significant
(p = 0.09).
In summary, the prior kitchen experience of restaurant founders has positive implications for the
food quality evaluations attained by their new restaurants. However, their accumulated ownership
experience has more tenuous implications and actually impairs food quality when they make spe-
cific claims of also working in the kitchen. When they make broad entrepreneurial claims, this
prior ownership experience is simply irrelevant for food quality. Accumulated ownership experi-
ence becomes beneficial when focus turns to customer evaluations of restaurant décor/ambiance.
Because this outcome is more closely associated with the commercial side of restaurant produc-
tions, founders’ prior ownership experience has a positive effect on quality, while prior kitchen
experience becomes irrelevant.
Roberts et al. 49
Discussion and conclusion
The results reported in this article affirm many of the basic tenets of the jack-of-all-trades theory
of entrepreneurship. Compared to hired chefs, restaurant founders tend have more of the ownership
experience that prepares them for the broader responsibilities associated with the entrepreneurial
role. This experience does not influence founders by augmenting their capacity to produce food at
Table 9. Customer evaluations of décor/ambiance
Model 6
Décor/ambiance quality
Constant 52.47
*
(10.68)
Typical décor/ambiance 0.24
†
(0.13)
Middle-price level 5.85
*
(1.41)
High-price level 13.04
*
(1.77)
Restaurant age ?0.38
*
(0.09)
Count of founders 0.49
(0.83)
(Chef) founder kitchen experience ?0.05
(0.25)
(Chef) founder ownership experience ?0.28
(0.31)
(Non-chef) founder kitchen experience 0.06
(0.36)
(Non-chef) founder ownership experience 0.19
†
(0.11)
Selection equation
Constant ?0.64
*
(0.07)
Count of ratings in cuisine (’00) 0.14
*
(0.01)
(Chef) founder kitchen experience 0.04
*
(0.02)
(Chef) founder ownership experience 0.00
(0.03)
(Non-chef) founder kitchen experience 0.03
(0.03)
(Non-chef) founder ownership experience 0.02
†
(0.01)
Log-likelihood -2,089,27
N 845
*p < 0.05;
†
p < 0.10.
50 Strategic Organization 11(1)
higher quality. Rather, the jack-of-all-trades thesis is that the broader ownership experience should
improve performance in the tasks that emanate from outside the organization’s technical core. In
this respect, it is affirming to see the décor/ambiance results presented in Table 9.
While affirming these key assertions, our results offer one important boundary condition; one
that is also in line with the jack-of-all-trades theory. The implications of accruing broader skills for
product quality become negative when an individual does not adopt the generalist orientation
implied in the theory. Consistent with recent ecological theory and research, founders who remain
focused on the technical core are handicapped by more variegated career experiences.
An evolutionary interpretation of these results highlights the tendency for careers to migrate in
the direction of generalism. Given the importance of accumulated technical experience, individu-
als can obviously transition from being technical specialists toward more generalist entrepre-
neurial roles. Initially, their lack of ownership experience means that they can emphasize work in
the technical core of their new ventures without penalty. However, given their lack of ownership
experience (and given the décor/ambiance results presented in Table 9) they might be wise to pair
with a generalist founder who has accumulated ownership experience. As individuals accumulate
their own experiences as owners, they begin to develop more balanced skill sets by working
across domain boundaries. This makes them more likely to become entrepreneurs again in the
future (see Table 3). However, it simultaneously makes them less effective working in technical
domains in their new ventures. In the most productive version of this evolutionary account, initial
acts of entrepreneurship begin a process that ultimately takes skilled specialists out of the core
and into more generalist entrepreneurial roles. Any attempts to reverse this process and return to
performing technical work will come with quality penalties.
More generally, these findings also advance the literature on related pre-founding experience.
Studies set in a range of industries demonstrate the positive effects of a founder’s same-industry
experience on the overall success of young organizations (Klepper, 2001, 2002; Phillips, 2002).
More recent research shows how related pre-founding experience influences more specific
organizational outcomes such as technological sophistication (Agarwal et al., 2004), product
quality (Simons and Roberts, 2007) or funding success (Chatterji, 2009). In light of these
findings, organizational theorists are coalescing around a relatively straightforward account of
founder background effects. However, studies reviewed by Delmar and Shane (2006) suggest
that founder effects tend to be non-significant for variables that measure general industry
experience, and positive for variables that measure domain-based knowledge, for example
start-up experience (Klepper, 2001). Moreover, when experiences linked to specific domains
are not accounted for, founder effects exhibit a surprising non-linearity, possibly indicating
diverging patterns of domain experience within the industry.
Clearly, the results presented in Tables 6 through 9 attest to the critical role played by founders
in determining organizational outcomes like product quality. The career experience of hired chefs
– who have similar levels of kitchen experience as chef-founders (see Table 3) but no ownership
stake – exerts no discernible effect on food quality outcomes. Because these employees have as
much accumulated experience as chef-founders, they should be as adept at executing specific dishes.
However, as employees they are not closely linked to the decisions taken at and before founding.
Therefore, their expertise does not factor into the choices that imprint (Stinchcombe, 1965) new
ventures in ways that lead to superior output quality later on. Moreover, experience effects are con-
ditioned both on the domains in which a founder’s skills accumulated and on the orientation of her/
his claims when founding a new organization. In the restaurant industry, the emphasis on food qual-
ity translates into advantages for founders that have accumulated more kitchen experience. When
there is a need for complementary positive evaluations of décor/ambiance, then it is also good to
Roberts et al. 51
have founders with prior ownership experience. However, with the contradictions inherent across
the boundary that separates kitchen work and the more commercial ownership work, it seems impor-
tant that founders with ownership experience resist the urge to continue working in the kitchen.
As we expand the range of organizations to which these insights apply, we will likely observe
other settings with inconsistencies in the requirements of different job categories. Cultural organi-
zations (e.g., the restaurants studied in this article) strive to meet the aesthetic demands of critics
and consumers while addressing the commercial interests of investors. Technology companies
(e.g., Apple) must appeal to technological sophisticates and those more directly concerned with
their financial performance. Social enterprises (e.g., Body Shop) are held to double bottom lines as
they pursue both social and financial objectives. Fine (1996) and Caves (2000) point to the many
tensions associated with managing the aesthetic–commercial boundary while considerable com-
mentary is devoted to the trade-offs between achieving satisfactory financial performance along
with positive social outcomes (Margolis and Walsh, 2003). However, we recognize that the demar-
cation of organizational boundaries is not always so stark and oppositional. As such, to assess the
generalizability of our findings, future research must evaluate the extent to which the observed
penalties associated with ownership experience generalize across different industry settings.
With this in mind, we must also recognize that our analysis emphasizes one element of an
organization’s overall performance – product quality. This emphasis is non-trivial because product
quality is something that is important in its own right and typically correlated with the overall
competitive performance of new ventures. It is also appropriate because it allows us to emphasize
one issue that the jack-of-all-trades theory of entrepreneurship is currently silent on: whether the
accumulation of complementary business skills has implications for the underlying quality of
products offered by new ventures. That said, we do not claim to have a complete account of how a
founders’ broader experience profile directly influences the new venture’s ability to (for instance)
set prices, manage workers or control input costs. Nor do we know whether the ownership experi-
ence penalty that we isolate reflects a diminished capacity to produce at higher quality, or the
conscious decision to reduce investments in quality to reach profit-maximizing rather than maxi-
mum quality levels (although our analysis does establish that our effects are evident among those
ventures positioned in higher-price market segments). We therefore remain reticent in drawing
broader conclusions about the overall implications of career experiences on organizational perfor-
mance until we determine how these variables influence a new venture’s overall competitive out-
comes, as indicated by superior financial returns or greater longevity.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit
sectors.
Notes
1. We recognize that the customers who ultimately evaluate the products may also be inclined to assume
that individuals with convoluted career backgrounds are unsuited to their current roles and discount their
assessments accordingly. Moreover, Baker and Faulkner’s (1991) posit that founders with inappropriate
career credentials have trouble attracting material and cultural resources to their ventures. In this way, the
adverse signaling effect also drains a new venture of resources and may further compromise its ability to
make high-quality products. Several studies use innovative methods and datasets to isolate these differ-
ent mechanisms; e.g., Negro and Leung (2012) and Roberts et al. (2011a). In our case the data are more
limited and we simply note that all mechanisms generate the same basic prediction about prior ownership
experience and subsequent product quality.
52 Strategic Organization 11(1)
2. To assess the extent of selection bias in our entrepreneur background data, we obtained the 1998 sup-
plement to the Toronto Life magazine called The Restaurant Guide Special Supplement, which provides
quality and price information for 292 restaurants. Our data provide entrepreneur information for 42.5%
of the listed restaurants. A logistic regression model that relates the probability of inclusion in the CRDB
entrepreneur data to a restaurant’s quality and price reveals that restaurant quality has a positive but
insignificant (p = 0.12) impact while price has a positive and significant (p = 0.00) impact.
3. The three groups are not as different when it comes to the typical food quality served at their previous
restaurants. Based on a smaller number of observations where available quality information (see below)
overlaps the career experience data, the prior food quality for hired chefs at founding (82.21) is not sig-
nificantly different from those who became chef-founders (80.20) and only moderately higher than that
for those who became non-chef founders (79.86). Only the latter difference is significant (p = 0.03).
4. Holbrook (1999) queried the association between popular appeal and expert judgment. Our Patrons
Pick/Zagat ratings likely fall in between these two extremes. Consumer raters do not have the training to
qualify as expert critics. At the same time, they are lead users whose interest in participating in the guides
makes them closer to the expert than is the typical restaurant customer.
5. In cases where food quality ratings are published in both Patrons Pick and Zagat, they are correlated at
0.57.
6. The average food quality rating (for the first year that each restaurant was reviewed) for all restaurants
covered by Patrons Pick or Zagat is 73.09. This is slightly lower than the average quality rating of the
restaurants in our final sample.
7. We account (in a limited way) for the possibility that the restaurants where founders accrued industry
experience were of variable quality. In an unreported model, we analyze data from 107 restaurants in the
sample where at least some of the prior restaurant experiences took place in restaurants for which we
have food quality ratings. This model includes a control for the average food quality of the restaurants
with which founders were associated prior to founding. The estimated effect of this control variable is
not significant. Moreover, with this control and with a roughly 70% smaller sample, the pattern of
experience effects is similar to that reported in model 2.
8. The null effect of prior ownership experience is also found in the subset of 281 observations with no prior
kitchen experience (? = 0.02; p = 0.84) and those with positive prior kitchen experience (? = –0.04;
p = 0.66) on the founding team.
9. The decision to also claim the chef role, which is obviously non-random, is theorized to be relevant for
observing negative ownership experience effects. In an unreported model, we applied inverse probability
treatment weighting to address this non-random assignment. Following Robins et al. (2000) we applied
stabilized weights. The denominator for the weight was the estimated probability that an individual
elected to be a chef-founder based on her/his kitchen and ownership experience, as well as her/his time
in the restaurant industry (and its square) and the count of other contemporaneous restaurant jobs held
at founding. The numerator for the weight was a similarly estimated probability without accounting for
the individual’s pre-founding experience. After computing weights for each entrepreneur, they were
summed to the restaurant level and used to adjust the influence of each observation in the food quality
regression. The results that we report were unaffected.
10. Given the correlation between food quality and ratings of décor/ambiance (see Table 5), we also esti-
mated a pair of seemingly unrelated regression equations (Zellner, 1962); one in which the dependent
variable was the food quality score and another in which the dependent variable is ratings of décor/ambi-
ance. This regression framework, which accounts for the non-independence in the error terms across
each equation, generated virtually identical results.
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Author biographies
Peter W. Roberts is Professor of Organization and Management at Goizueta Business School, Emory
University. His current research focuses on social entrepreneurs, for-profit microfinance institutions, and
company-sponsored philanthropic foundations. Address: Goizueta Business School, Emory University, 1300
Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA. [email: [email protected]]
Giacomo Negro is Associate Professor of Organization and Management at Goizueta Business School,
Emory University. He studies the ecology of organizations, categories, and identities in markets. Address:
Goizueta Business School, Emory University, 1300 Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA. [email: giacomo.
[email protected]]
Anand Swaminathan is Goizueta Chair and Professor of Organization and Management at Goizueta Business
School, Emory University. His research examines a number of organizational issues, including industry evo-
lution, strategies for niche/specialist firms, and social network theory. Address: Goizueta Business School,
Emory University, 1300 Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA. [email: [email protected]]

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