Toby E. Stuart
There are 7 articles for this faculty member.
About Faculty in this Article:
Toby E. Stuart is the Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.
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Discretion Within the Constraints of Opportunity: Gender Homophily and Structure in a Formal Organization
| Authors: | Adam M. Kleinbaum, Toby E. Stuart, and Michael L. Tushman |
|---|---|
| Published: | January 27, 2012 |
| Paper Release Date: | December 2011 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
Research has demonstrated that people associate most with others who are similar to themselves, including others of the same sex. What are the implications of such patterns for organizations? This study, written by Adam M. Kleinbaum, Toby E. Stuart, and Michael L. Tushman, offers evidence of how and by whom formal lateral structures serve to link together an otherwise siloed organization. Analyzing millions of e-mail interactions among tens of thousands of employees of a single large firm, the researchers find that it is women more than men who tend to bridge formal structural boundaries in organizations. Thus women play a potentially valuable role in creating ties throughout an otherwise siloed multidivisional corporation. Despite the influence of a firm's formal organizational structure, people often have plenty of discretion to exercise choice. Same-sex interaction results from discretionary choice within the boundaries of the firm's opportunity structure. These results suggest (but do not prove) that same-sex interaction especially by woman can help to span formal organizational boundaries that are otherwise difficult to traverse. The findings raise questions for future research about whether conventional wisdoms regarding gender differences in social network structure remain accurate in current-day organizations.
Published in 2010
From Bench to Board: Gender Differences in University Scientists' Participation in Commercial Science
| Authors: | Waverly W. Ding, Fiona Murray, and Toby E. Stuart |
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| Published: | September 15, 2010 |
| Paper Release Date: | August 2010 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
Does gender affect whether a university scientist will be invited to work with for-profit companies? Indeed it does. A new paper finds that male professors receive more opportunities than their female counterparts to join scientific advisory boards and start new companies. Research, focusing on the biotechnology field, was conducted by Haas School of Business professor Waverly W. Ding, MIT Sloan professor Fiona Murray, and HBS professor Toby E. Stuart.
Boundary Spanning in a For-Profit Research Lab: An Exploration of the Interface Between Commerce and Academe
| Authors: | Christopher C. Liu and Toby E. Stuart |
|---|---|
| Published: | September 9, 2010 |
| Paper Release Date: | August 2010 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
In science-based industries, innovation requires bridging the boundary between universities and companies. As entrepreneurial faculty venture into the world of commerce by building relationships and reputations in industry, company researchers and dealmakers seek access to the distributed knowledge base that resides within the community of scholars. But what happens within organizations when scientists venture deeply into the world of academe? In this look at one influential life sciences company, Christopher C. Liu of the Rotman School of Management and Toby E. Stuart of Harvard Business School find important connections between publishing, the allocation of rewards within the company, and the structure of the communication network inside and beyond the borders of the organization.
Published in 2009
Social Influence Given (Partially) Deliberate Matching: Career Imprints in the Creation of Academic Entrepreneurs
| Authors: | Pierre Azoulay, Christopher C. Liu, and Toby E. Stuart |
|---|---|
| Published: | June 11, 2009 |
| Paper Release Date: | May 2009 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
How do people select partners for relationships? Most relationships arise from a matching process in which individuals pair on a limited number of high-priority dimensions. Although people often match on just a few attributes, it may be that some set of additional characteristics, which was not considered when a choice was made to develop the relationship, results in the social transmission of attitudes and behaviors. For this reason, social matching is only "partially" deliberate. HBS professor Toby Stuart and coauthors observe this phenomenon in an analysis of the origins and consequences of the matching of postdoctoral biomedical scientists to their faculty advisers. This work shows the imprints of postdoctoral advisers on the subsequent choices of the scientists-in-training who travel through their laboratories. The researchers' findings contribute to a burgeoning literature on the interface between academic and commercial science.
Published in 2008
The Silo Lives! Analyzing Coordination and Communication in Multiunit Companies
| Q&A with: | Toby E. Stuart |
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| Published: | September 22, 2008 |
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
A new Harvard Business School working paper looks inside the communications "black box" of a large company to understand who talks to whom, and finds the corporate silo as impenetrable as ever. Q&A with professor Toby E. Stuart.
Communication (and Coordination?) in a Modern, Complex Organization
| Authors: | Adam M. Kleinbaum, Toby E. Stuart, and Michael L. Tushman |
|---|---|
| Published: | July 31, 2008 |
| Paper Release Date: | July 2008 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
Coordination, and the communication it implies, is central to the very existence of organizations. Despite their fundamental role in the purpose of organizations, scholars have little understanding of actual interaction patterns in modern, complex, multiunit firms. To open the proverbial "black box" and begin to reveal the internal wiring of the firm, this paper presents a detailed, descriptive analysis of the network of communications among members of a large, structurally, functionally, geographically, and strategically diverse firm. The full data set comprises more than 100 million electronic mail messages and over 60 million electronic calendar entries for a sample of more 30,000 employees over a three-month period in 2006.
Published in 2006
The Money Connection—Understanding VC Networks
| Published: | December 4, 2006 |
|---|---|
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Venture capital firms often consider investments in companies located far away or in unfamiliar industries. How do they spot these opportunities and also reduce risk? It's the power of networks, says Harvard Business School professor Toby Stuart—and understanding how they work in VC is just now starting to be understood.
