Essays on economic sociology of innovation and entrepreneurship

This dissertation considers how innovation and entrepreneurship are developed, encouraged, and evaluated with the theoretical lens of economic sociology. The first chapter investigates who becomes an entrepreneur among the pool of general consumers. The process by which individuals become entrepreneurs is often described as a decisive moment of transition, yet it necessarily involves a series of smaller steps. By breaking down the transition stages of knitting hobbyists' transition to producers who sell their original design patterns, the study examines the distinctive characteristics that affect users' decision to (a) create new products and (b) commercialize them. The second chapter examines the role of social capital in revealing and encouraging entrepreneurship. To the question of how social capital benefits innovation and entrepreneurship, existing literature has provided one dominant answer: access to information and resources.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Sloan School of Management

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Kim, Hyejun.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Ezra Zuckerman Sivan.

• Sloan School of Management.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123583

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/123583