In strategic‑leadership research, there is much interest in the influence of CEO's career horizon (CCH) on firm's resource investments and performance. While one line of CCH research, the traditional view, suggests that the shortening of CCH will reduce CEO risk-taking and firm's investments in radical innovation, intriguingly, a second emerging line of CCH research suggests the very opposite. The traditional view rests on the idea that CEO behavior is driven by the potential of personal gains through short-term profit optimization. Contrarily, the emerging view reflects the position that CEO behavior is driven by the potential of leaving long-term legacy by setting societal interests above personal ones. Reconciling these views, we theorize a U-shaped relationship between CCH and the pursuit of radical innovations, which recognizes that CEO motivations do not stay constant or fixed over their career trajectory. We also theorize two boundary conditions likely to attenuate this relationship: busyness of firm's board directors and firm's ownership by dedicated institutional investors. The study tests these ideas in the oil and gas industry , in which firms have opportunity to pursue radical innovations centering on renewable energies as well as incremental innovations centering on pollution reduction using traditional fossil fuels. Analysis of fifteen years of patent data for a panel of 105 firms shows support for our predictions. We discuss the study's contributions to research and practice, and its implications for policymaking to speed up transition to net-zero solutions.

In equity crowdfunding, establishing legitimacy is crucial for firms to mitigate the information asymmetry investors face. We propose that the strategic selection of incorporating a business in Delaware—a jurisdiction recognized for its investor-friendly legal framework—sends a quality signal to investors, enticing greater participation in capital raises. While prior studies indicate a diminishing relevance of Delaware incorporation for later-stage and mature ventures, our study presents a contrasting story for smaller, nascent equity crowdfunding firms. Utilizing a comprehensive dataset of U.S. regulated equity crowdfunding offerings from May 2016 to December 2021, our empirical analysis uncovers a positive and meaningful relationship between Delaware incorporation and crowdfunding success in the United States. These findings underscore the significance of Delaware's legal infrastructure for firms confronting heightened challenges of establishing trust due to otherwise limited governance mechanisms. By highlighting the importance of institutional quality, this research contributes to understanding how legal frameworks influence investment outcomes and entrepreneurial motivations, offering insights for entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers. • Comprehensive analysis of success factors across the entire U.S. regulation equity crowdfunding market (3539 firms). • The choice to incorporate in Delaware is a critical signal of governance quality in the opaque crowdfunding environment. • Delaware incorporation boosts the average likelihood of achieving fundraising goals by 6.1 %.

To pursue radical innovation in emergent digital ecosystems, middle managers need to balance the often conflicting expectations and interests of internal and external stakeholders. Our longitudinal field study of Atos, a leading IT company, follows a team of middle managers aiming to collaborate with novel financial technology firms—so-called fintechs—to catalyze radical innovation. We explore how they navigated contradictory legitimacy issues arising from stakeholders both internal and external to the firm. In doing so, we outline how they adopted and adjusted a changing mix of legitimacy-seeking behavior over time to generate and sustain an array of radical innovations. Our findings show how legitimacy issues continuously evolve as middle managers embed their innovation efforts, driven by shifting stakeholder expectations, leading them to adjust their legitimacy-seeking approach. We contribute to the literature on collaborative innovation ecosystem strategies, emphasizing the central role of middle managers in connecting the internal organizational stakeholders to external ecosystem actors.