| The goal of this dissertation is to understand how organizational goals affect the commercialization of new technologies and the introduction of new products in a multi-business firm. In the first two studies, I conduct an inductive case study and qualitative comparative analysis of the new venture process at Motorola from 2004-2007 in order to develop a theory of goal activation: the process by which specific goals are drawn from the multitude available, attached to projects, and used to assess the allocation of resources and the selection of new initiatives. An activation perspective departs from both garbage can models, where matching is structurally driven and free of goals, and economic models where all goals serve as decision constraints. Instead, I find that decision makers select particular goals contingent on the goal's availability, appropriateness, and potential effect on initiatives. As a result, goals vary across the levels in the organization and are activated at different stages of the new venture process---in particular, when new initiatives are funded for development and when they are transferred to the business unit for commercialization. Because goals vary across level and time, I find that goals are loosely coupled with organizational outcomes, and only occasionally motivate effort and direct attention toward desired outcomes. In the third study, utilizing a data set of new product introductions in the mobile device industry, I demonstrate that the effect of goal activation on new product launches is contingent on both the corporate hierarchy and the interdependencies among goals within the firm. Surprisingly, I find that corporate and business unit divisions have opposite effects on new product introductions, and that loosely coupled goals may best foster innovation. |
