Who deviates? Technological opportunities, career concern, and inventor's distant search

Abstract Research Summary Why do inventors facing similar feedback from the technological environment differ in their propensity to search locally or distantly? Problem‐driven decision calculus tends not to sufficiently explain such heterogeneity. We instead examine the individual inventor's calculus surrounding career concern. We propose that with reduced technological opportunities in her local domains, the ensuing career concern induces her to search distantly. This response is attenuated when career concern is less salient—she is relatively productive within the firm or is a star—or when opportunity cost of response is higher—she has more firm‐specific experience or interdependent knowledge. Data from the US electronic industry support our propositions. Findings help explain differential search in response to common problems and illustrate how personal interest intermingles with problem‐driven feedback driving search. Managerial Summary A firm relies heavily on its inventors' search for new, distant technologies to stay on technological frontiers. Faced with technological decline, which of its inventors will engage in this distant search? We bring inventors' career concern into consideration and use data from the US electronic industry to show that, counterintuitively, it is the relatively less‐productive, nonstar inventors with less firm‐specific inventive experience or less interdependence with the rest of the firm's technologies that will more likely engage in distant search. This stresses that managers, in trying to comprehend their inventors' behavior and mindsets, must go beyond understanding how inventors interpret technological problems they are trying to solve, to also consider these inventors' personal concerns which will affect the way they search.