About

Warren Boeker is a Professor of Management at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business, holding the Douglas E. Olesen Endowed Chair. He has been with the university since 1998 and has also served as a visiting professor at London Business School and an associate and assistant professor at Columbia University. His academic expertise includes competitive strategy, innovation, and technology. Boeker's research focuses on strategic management, organizational ecosystems, corporate governance, and the role of networks in strategy. He has contributed to understanding how cohort effects benefit new ventures, the impact of director political ideology on governance practices, and the influence of facial appearance on CEO selection after firm misconduct. Boeker has received several awards, including the Dean's Entrepreneurship Research Award and the Global EMBA Excellence in Teaching Award, and has served on editorial boards for prominent management journals.

Research topics

• Business
• Marketing
• Political Science
• Market economy
• Pharmacology
• Economics
• Medicine
• Biology
• Accounting
• Industrial organization
• Biotechnology
• Finance
• Law

Selected publications

• When opportunity meets ability: The moderating effects of prolific inventors on novel drug innovation following product development failure in biotechnology

  Strategic Management Journal · 2023 · 20 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Business
  • Marketing
  • Industrial organization

  Abstract Research Summary Through a longitudinal study of the product development portfolios of 457 US‐based firms in the biotechnology industry, we investigate how prolific inventors shape a firm's innovative direction following product development failure. Contrary to received wisdom, we argue and demonstrate that an increase in the number of prolific inventors is associated with a decrease in firm propensity to pursue novel product innovation following such failure. We further find that the presence of prolific inventors with greater collaborative strength and longer tenure negatively moderate the positive relationship between failure and the pursuit of novel product development. We discuss the implications of our results for research on learning from failure and strategic human capital. Managerial Summary In case of adverse events such as product development failure, managers often rely on the firm's prolific inventors to help the firm learn from failure. Our study shows that there are limits to this approach. While prolific inventors increase firm propensity for novel product development, such propensity is significantly decreased following product failure. We further establish that the presence of prolific inventors with greater collaborative strength and long tenures is especially likely to reduce firms' pursuit of novel products, while the presence of those with low collaborative strength and tenure tend to increase this propensity.

  PublisherDOI

• When Opportunity Meets Ability: The Moderating Effects of Prolific Inventors on Novel Drug Innovation Following Product Failure in Biotechnology

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Biotechnology
  • Business
  • Marketing
  PublisherDOI

• Fall from grace: Ethical shortfalls and firm actions

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2021-07-26

  articleSenior author

  Financial misconduct damages and stigmatizes organizations because top management is perceived to have substantial control over such actions. The extent to which misconduct is considered egregious, however, may vary depending on the context of the ethical violation. This study introduces the idea that perceptions of and reactions to a firm’s ethical performance are influenced by the conduct of its peers. Using data on S&P 1500 firms charged with financial misconduct between 2003 and 2012, we find that a firm’s ethical underperformance relative to peers, which we label as ethical shortfall, predicts CEO dismissal following an ethical violation. Our study confirms that even egregious ethical violations are interpreted and acted on using a comparative yardstick. We also find that the media’s reaction to the ethical shortfall moderates this relationship, with greater media attention strengthening the relationship between ethical shortfall and CEO dismissal. Finally, we demonstrate that the firm’s past involvement and support for corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives act as a buffer, reducing the effect of the ethical shortfall on CEO dismissal. This finding indicates that the positive reputational benefits of CSR activities can help safeguard the firm in cases of comparative ethical lapses.

  PublisherDOI

• Corporate directors as heterogeneous network pipes: How director political ideology affects the interorganizational diffusion of governance practices

  Strategic Management Journal · 2021 · 27 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Accounting
  • Business

  Abstract Research Summary Scholars have long recognized that interlocking directors act as conduits (or “pipes”) in the interorganizational diffusion of governance practices. Yet, this research generally depicts interlocks as homogenous, overlooking the possibility that directors differ in their beliefs about a given practice. Our study explores this idea in the context of the spread of two practices—lone‐insider board structures and CEO‐chair separation—across S&P 500 firms from 1997 to 2016. We theorize and show that politically conservative directors are more likely to transmit the lone‐insider structure, whereas politically liberal directors are likelier to transmit the CEO‐chair separation structure. We further illustrate that these effects are stronger when the focal firm faces shareholder pressure for governance reform, and weaker when the institutional norms curtail director discretion. Managerial Summary Prior research suggests that corporate directors who sit on multiple boards cause those firms to learn from each other and adopt similar practices. Yet, directors differ in their views on governance practices, which means that they should also differ in their propensity to act as “pipes” in this diffusion process. We argue and show that interlocking directors' political ideologies influence this process, such that conservative directors are likelier to transmit the lone‐insider board structure (where the CEO is the only firm employee on the board), whereas liberal directors are likelier to transmit the practice that separates the CEO and board chair roles. These differences are most evident when firms' shareholders exert pressure for governance reform, although they have diminished somewhat since the 2002 Sarbanes‐Oxley Act.

  PublisherDOI

• Aspirational Motivation and Competitive Conformity

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2021-07-26

  article

  In a rapidly growing industry where all firms are doing extremely well, a firm whose performance is merely good may seem inadequate by comparison. By incorporating behavioral theory of the firm (BTOF) logic, we examine the degree to which managers choose to conform to the competitive actions and repertoires of peers based on the joint effects of their social performance (performance relative to peers) and historic performance (performance relative to their past performance). We assess the actions of 303 firms from 2001 to 2017 and find that poor social performance leads firms to imitate their more successful competitors, moving more closely to competitive repertoires that reflect the norms or “recipe” for the industry. We further find that this relationship is contingent on how the focal firm performs relative to historical aspirations, depending primarily on whether the signals from social and historic performance are congruent or inconsistent. Our results extend work on competitive dynamics and behavioral theories of the firm, as well as informing past research that has discussed the benefits that imitation provides to organizations, such as institutional theory and theories of mimetic isomorphism, which argue that firms benefit when they model themselves on other successful organizations.

  PublisherDOI

• Collaboration and informal hierarchy in innovation teams: Product introductions in entrepreneurial ventures

  Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal · 2019-07-31 · 48 citations

  articleSenior author

  Abstract Research Summary Although stars may be particularly innovative, building teams to collaborate with them can be difficult. Coordinating efforts between stars and non‐stars may be especially complex in new venture, which rely on informal hierarchy to manage organizational tasks. We investigate how a venture's success at introducing new products may be influenced by the extent to which company founders and star performers are involved in co‐developing new technologies. By analyzing innovation teams within a sector of the medical device industry from 1986 to 2007, we find that combining both star inventors and founder‐inventors on a venture's innovation team may limit product introductions. Our results highlight the importance of organizational design in managing coordination and resource allocation in a venture setting and suggest important boundary conditions when stars may impede, rather than benefit, innovation. Managerial Summary Designing an innovation team can be challenging for new ventures. While the presence of a technologically proficient founder or highly accomplished inventor can significantly bolster a new venture's innovation efforts, our results indicate that these roles must be carefully managed to prevent conflicts between them. Our findings suggest that founders who hire star inventors should establish a clear hierarchy of decision‐making within innovation teams, while also offering greater autonomy to the star inventor in matters concerning innovation leadership and product development. We also suggest that it may be advantageous for founders to hire star inventors with prior experience working in new ventures as opposed to older, established organizations. Overall, our study indicates that new ventures need to exercise caution in hiring and managing star employees.

  PublisherDOI

• Political Ideology of the Board and CEO Dismissal Following Financial Misconduct

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2019-08-01 · 15 citations

  article

  Why do some boards refuse to take serious action against CEOs who have committed financial misconduct? Past work has directed attention to the antecedents of misconduct while largely overlooking this question. The relatively few studies to examine it have typically revolved around the capacity of boards to take action, or their relationships to their CEOs. This study instead examines how the beliefs and values held by board members can influence their actions following financial misconduct. Focusing on political ideology, we argue and find that politically conservative boards are more likely to respond by dismissing the CEO than are liberal boards. In addition, we identify two factors that moderate this finding: a firm’s ethical shortfall compare to industry peers and engagement in corporate social responsibility.

  PublisherDOI

• Political ideology of the board and CEO dismissal following financial misconduct

  Strategic Management Journal · 2019-09-11 · 71 citations

  article

  Abstract Research Summary Why do some boards refuse to take serious action against CEOs who have committed financial misconduct? Past work has directed attention to the antecedents of misconduct while largely overlooking this question. The relatively few studies that examined it have typically revolved around agency arguments. This study instead examines how the beliefs and values held by board members can influence their actions following financial misconduct. Focusing on political ideology, we argue that politically conservative boards are more likely to respond by dismissing the CEO than are liberal boards as the result of ideo‐attribution and threat management tendencies. Using data from S&P 1500 firms that were involved with financial misconduct, we find support for our arguments while addressing sample‐induced endogeneity and alternative explanations with additional analyses. Managerial Summary Despite criticism from stakeholders, the public, media, and policy makers, many firms do not take serious action against CEOs who have committed financial misconduct. Past studies have suggested that this is due to board structures (e.g., lack of board independence) or situations surrounding misconduct (e.g., severity of misconduct). We propose that political ideology, a set of beliefs and values, held by board members, influences whether firms dismiss their CEOs following financial misconduct. Examining S&P 1500 firms that were involved in financial misconduct, we find that politically conservative boards tend to dismiss their CEOs more often than do liberal boards, offering practical implications for how the ideology of board members can influence critical actions that they take. A video abstract is available at https://youtu.be/P7ew1aJjsdY .

  PublisherDOI

• Can They Save the Firm From Itself? Learning From Failure and the Role of Stars in Organizations

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2019-08-01

  article

  A central determinant of a firms’ competitive advantage is their ability to generate new products in the marketplace. However, in technology intensive industries, the development of new products is often fraught with uncertainty and such projects often result in failure. Although a rich body of literature has examined how firms may learn from these failures, missing from this prior work is much understanding of how key organizational players shape firms’ learning from failure incurred in the process of day-to-day organizational activities such as new product development. Our research contends that key organizational actors such as prolific inventors are likely to be pivotal to a firms’ efforts to interpret negative feedback from its product development efforts. Focusing on key organizational players can shed new light on learning from failure as individuals are argued to be the locus of knowledge creation and diffusion in organizations. Hence, we ask the research question: “How does the presence of star inventors in a firm influence the firm’s ability to deal with product development failure and successfully launch new products?” Drawing on the literature on organizational learning, innovation and star scientists, we examine this question through a longitudinal study of 322 firms in the biotech industry over the period 1973 through 2010.

  PublisherDOI

• Interpersonal relationships, digital technologies, and innovation in entrepreneurial ventures

  Journal of Business Research · 2019-09-12 · 70 citations

  article1st author
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Robert Wiltbank

  31 shared

• Yan Huo

  Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University

  16 shared

• Arvin Sahaym

  Washington State University

  13 shared

• Michael D. Howard

  Iowa State University

  11 shared

• Sandip Basu

  Baruch College

  11 shared

• Jerry Goodstein

  10 shared

• Amrita Lahiri

  9 shared

• David M. Gomulya

  Singapore Management University

  8 shared

Awards & honors

• Dean's Entrepreneurship Research Award
• Global EMBA Excellence in Teaching Award
• Core Teaching Team of the Year for Spring Courses Taught