Overview | Key Projects: Collaboration Continuum
Taxonomical Similarity Measures | NBER Full Text Extension | NBER Geolocation Project
The following is a personal page setup to describe the research and ongoing projects for:
Robert C. McNamee
Assistant Professor, Department of Strategic Management
Academic Director, Innovation & Entrepreneurship Institute
Fox School of Business, Temple University
Robert.C.McNamee at gmail dot com
- Click here for a copy of my vita -
If you are looking for supporting data and additional results from my recent Research Policy publication -- Can’t See the Forest for the Leaves: Similarity and Distance Measures for Hierarchical Taxonomies with a Patent Classification Example -- please click here.
My Background / Summary
My research focus is in the areas of knowledge exchange, creativity, innovation, and organizational learning. I approach the world through an OB, psychological, or sociological lens (although my work ranges across micro as well as macro topics). I am equally comfortable interviewing top executives, analyzing organization wide social network surveys, or building and analyzing large/complex databases. Previous to returning to academia, I worked for nearly 10 years as a systems integrator, technical sales manager, and strategic marketing director in the knowledge management industry (In my most recent position I was Director of Government Sales and Marketing with responsibility for $40+ million in federal, state, and local government revenue). My professional experience at reseller-integrators, software developers, and service bureaus balanced technical consulting and systems analysis with sales, marketing, and management.
Research Overview
My dissertation research applies a process-based perspective of organizational problem solving to contextualize knowledge exchange interactions. This framework is critical to help understand the role of both unsolicited and solicited knowledge in ‘Pull’ (receiver initiated) and ‘Push’ (source initiated) knowledge flows. I draw upon and integrate literatures from a number of domains (knowledge, advice, creativity, innovation) to understand source and recipient motivations in these types of interactions, organizational barriers to each type of knowledge flow, and the value of these flows to organizational productivity, learning, and change. Survey evidence from a number of large research & development organizations is used to support my hypotheses.
I created and continue to run a large research project involving several Fortune 500 companies, national labs, and federal research centers. This project uses a combination of methods (e.g., social network analysis, multi-level models, archival analysis, and interviews) to look at interpersonal knowledge exchange networks and the effect of Enterprise 2.0 systems (social networking, wikis, blogs, forums, etc...) on these networks. Representatives from 50+ organizations have participated to date, providing insights, personal experience, and research access. This project provides some of the data for my dissertation but also will provide data for several additional papers in the future.
In addition to my research on knowledge exchange in organizations, I also have two overlapping and related research streams: The first of these looks at knowledge and technology spaces using secondary data (i.e., patent data) to evaluate questions about technological trajectories, knowledge recombination, geographic clustering/spillovers, etc... The second looks at expertise, reputation, and status, using full-text content analysis to examine the construction and effects of reputation and status of individuals and firms.
- Published Papers
- Graffin, S., Wade, J., Porac, J., & McNamee, R. (May–Jun. 2008). The impact of CEO status leakage on the economic outcomes of other senior managers. Organization Science, 19(3), 1–18.
- Chen, C.C., Belkin, L.Y., McNamee, R., & Kurtzberg, T.R. (Aug. 2007). In the eyes of the follower: Construction of charisma in response to organizational change. Academy of Management Best Papers Proceedings.
- Under Review Papers
Several of my ongoing research papers and projects are described in the following pages (this is only a partial list - please see my C.V. for the full list of working and published papers). I am currently seeking collaborators to exploit a number of programs and datasets that I have created, please see individual pages for more information.
Knowledge Networks & Organizational Learning
- Working Papers
- Push vs. pull: The effect of source- and recipient-initiated knowledge exchanges in organizations. Advisor: Daniel Z. Levin (Rutgers), Committee: Terri Kurtzberg (Rutgers), Rob Cross (U. Virginia), Chao Chen (Rutgers), Jim Wade (Georgetown)
- McNamee, R. & Levin, D. Knowledge Exchange in Organizations: Integrating knowledge, advice, creativity, and innovation perspectives
- McNamee, R. That’s not what I asked: The problem solving process as a barrier to tacit knowledge transfer.
Enterprise 2.0 (Enterprise Web 2.0 / Social Networking Software)
- Working Papers
- McNamee, R. Find, Engage, & Understand: Evidence that Enterprise 2.0 systems break down interpersonal barriers in organizations
- McNamee, R. New dogs and old tricks: Enabling knowledge transfer across generational barriers.
- Ongoing Projects
Technology & Knowledge Spaces
- Working Papers
- Piepenbrink, A. & McNamee, R. A review of the methods and assumptions of similarity and distance measures in management research.
- McNamee, R. & Piepenbrink, A. Technology spaces: Comparing and contrasting the U.S. and European conceptions of technology space by exploring their patent classification taxonomies.
- Huang, S., McNamee, R., Piepenbrink, A., Pu, X., & Qiu, R. Rethinking Marshallian and Jacobian clusters: Distinguishing co-located specialized clusters and truly diversified clusters.
- Patent Databases
- General Programs
- Similarity / Distance / Network Data Restructuring and Calculation Program
Please contact me if you would like to collaborate or have questions about any of my ongoing projects, datasets, or research capabilities.
robert.c.mcnamee at gmail dot com
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