Dan J. Wang
Biographical Notes
Dan Wang is the David W. Zalaznick Associate Professor of Business and (by courtesy) Sociology at Columbia Business School. He teaches the core EMBA and MBA Strategy Formulation course, an elective MBA course on Technology Strategy, and a PhD seminar on Organizational Theory. In 2018, he received the Singvhi Prize for Scholarship in the Classroom, Columbia Business School’s top teaching honor conferred by the graduating MBA class. He was also named to Poets and Quants’ 2018 list of “Best 40 Business School Professors under 40.” He earned his BA from Columbia University (Columbia College) and PhD from Stanford University.
Wang’s research analyzes how social networks catalyze the transformation of knowledge across organizational and cultural boundaries to drive entrepreneurship and innovation. His main project focuses on ‘reverse brain drain’, or how the return migration of skilled professionals spreads knowledge, practices, and technologies to different parts of the world. He has also studied entrepreneurship and workplace innovation among returnees. In other work, he has analyzed the implications of different network patterns of venture capital investment syndication for the innovation performance of start-ups. Using similar approaches, he has also developed a research stream focused on organizational understanding of social protest outcomes, using network relationships across social movement actors and organizations to predict innovation, knowledge sharing, and tactical choices across activist groups.
His work has been published in Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Annual Review of Sociology, Journal of Applied Psychology, Social Forces, Social Networks, and Theory and Society. He currently serves as a consulting editor for The American Journal of Sociology. He has also contributed to practitioner-oriented publications such as Strategy+Business, and his work has been cited in CNN Money, The Wall Street Journal, and NPR. His research has been recognized with multiple awards from the Academy of Management, and he has been awarded both the Dissertation (2012) and Junior Faculty Fellowship (2017) from the Kauffman Foundation.
Publications
Learning vs. Leakage: Indirect Ties to Competitors and Firm Innovation In Academy of Management Journal (forthcoming)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang, Emily Cox, Rory McDonald More Information
Exposed: Venture Capital, Competitor Ties, and Entrepreneurial Innovation In Academy of Management Journal (2015)
Coauthor(s): Emily Cox, Rory McDonald, Dan Wang, Benjamin Hallen More Information
Streams of Thought: Knowledge Flows and Intellectual Cohesion in a Multidisciplinary Era In Social Forces (2015)
Coauthor(s): Craig Rawlings, Daniel McFarland, Linus Dahlander, Dan Wang More Information
Activating brokerage: Interorganizational knowledge transfer through skilled return migration In Administrative Science Quarterly (2015)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang More Information
Social stratification in transitional economies: property rights and the structure of markets In Theory and Society (2013)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang More Information
Is There a Canon in Economic Sociology? In Journal of Economic Sociology (2013)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang More Information Download paper (PDF)
Measurement error in network data: A re-classification In Social Networks (2012)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang More Information
Social Movement Organizational Collaboration: Networks of Learning and the Diffusion of Protest Tactics, 1960-1995 In American Journal of Sociology (2012)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang More Information
The Life and Death of Online Groups: Predicting Group Growth and Longevity In Web Science and Data Mining (2012)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang More Information
Working papers
Agency and Homophily: Evidence from a Two-Sided Audit Study (2019)
Coauthor(s): Bo Cowgill, Dan Wang More Information
Do Richer Foreign Work Experiences Lead to Intrapreneurial Success? Evidence from Microdata (2019)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang More Information
How Social Ties Bias Group Decisions: Results from Laboratory and Field Experiments on Abstract Art and Wine (2019)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang, Jackson Lu, Sheena Iyengar More Information
Micro-Structural Foundations of Network Inequality: Evidence from Observation Data and Field Experiments (2019)
Coauthor(s): Mathijs De Vaan, Dan Wang More Information
Modeling Oral Business History Data: An Application to Markets and CEO Communication (2019)
Coauthor(s): Prithwiraj Chourdury, Dan Wang, Natalie Carlson, Tarun Khanna More Information
Social Comparison in Tie-Formation: Which Reference Groups Are Relevant? (2019)
Coauthor(s): Mabel Abraham, Mathijs De Vaan, Dan Wang More Information
Strategic Adaptation Amid Institutional Uncertainty in Foreign-Market Entry: The Case of Chinese Cross-Border Investment Syndicates, 1991 to 2011 (2019)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang More Information
The Impact of Mentorship on Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in an Online Educational Platform (2019)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang, Zhang Ting More Information
To Stay, Go, or Circulate? How Cross-Border Networks Affect Returnees' Transitional Migration Intentions (2019)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang More Information
What Makes You Fly: Explaining Entrepreneurs' Success in Angel Investing (2019)
Coauthor(s): Alessandro Piazza, Dan Wang More Information
When Do Specialists Become Entrepreneurs? The Triggering Effect of Social Network Knowledge Diversity (2019)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang, K.J. Hwang, Modupe Akinola More Information
Cultural Distance and Intercultural Exchange: Unpacking the Psychological Pathway of Inspiration (2018)
Coauthor(s): Zou Xi, Dan Wang, Tim Wildschut, Constantine Sedikides, Dan Cable More Information
How Social Ties Bias Group Decisions: Results from Laboratory and Field Experiments on Abstract Art and Wine (2018)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang, Jackson Lu, Sheena Iyengar More Information
When Do Specialists Become Entrepreneurs? The Triggering Effect of Social Network Knowledge Diversity (2018)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang, Kylie Hwang, Modupe Akinola More Information
United We Stand? Venture-Capital Syndicates' Joint Co-investment Experience and Entrepreneurial Exits (2017)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang, Emily Cox Pahnke, Rory McDonald More Information
Who learns from whom? Asymmetric learning in Chinese cross-border investment syndicates, 1991-2011 (2014)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang More Information
Disruptive tactics and the use of violence in protest events: The efficacy-legitimacy trade-off (2013)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang More Information
Streams of Thought: Research Collaborations and Knowledge Flows in a Leading Research University (2013)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang More Information
Tactical Innovation in Protest: The Effects of Movement Spillover and Structural Isolation (2013)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang More Information
The Liability Of Leakage: How Indirect Ties To Competitors Impact Innovation In Entrepreneurial Firms (2013)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang More Information
The structural roots of collective influence in social networks (2013)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang, Jure Leskovec More Information
When do returnees become entrepreneurs? The effects of institutional environment and regional embeddedness (2013)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang More Information
Sharing technology, sharing rights: Patent law reform and R&D collaboration in China, 1985-2006 (2011)
Coauthor(s): Dan Wang More Information