Henning Piezunka

Henning Piezunka and Sruthi Thatchenkery (2025), Competition in Collaboration: The Problem of (Mis)Aligned Perception, Administrative Science Quarterly (forthcoming).

Abstract: Despite the benefits associated with interorganizational collaborations, they often fail to meet partnering firms’ expectations. A common issue is competitive tension between partners. Yet, competitive tension is a well-known issue in collaboration, such that partners should be able to set expectations and manage it accordingly. Why, then, does competitive tension often derail collaborations? We suggest that whether partners perceive each other as competitors is a key but understudied aspect of how competition shapes collaboration. We hypothesize that misaligned perception—one firm perceiving the other as a competitor but not vice versa—leads to misplaced expectations about partner behavior and collaboration performance and subsequent failure to meet those expectations. We test our theory in the U.S. software industry and find that collaborations characterized by misaligned perception are less likely to be renewed, even after controlling for partner quality and market overlap (i.e., objective competitive tension). Our examination of the social structure surrounding collaborations illustrates how the perceptions of third parties can moderate the effect of misaligned perception. We examine mechanisms and find that misalignment is linked to litigation between partners and lower collaboration performance. We contribute to the literatures on interfirm collaboration and on perception in social networks.

Rodolphe Durand, Henning Piezunka, Philipp Reineke (2025), Difference in Deference: When Competitors Do Not Give in Despite Having Lost, Organization Science (forthcoming).

Abstract: When a contest is decided, the inferior competitor is supposed to defer to the superior opponent. Yet, sometimes the losing actors refuse to give in. We theorize why and when losing actors do not defer—even when they are supposed to. We hypothesize that when the losing actors categorize their relationship with an opponent as rivalrous beyond the current contest and may obtain some contest-specific gains independent of the focal encounter, they will not defer as much as expected. Unique data from Formula One racing prove strong support. Our findings contribute to research on deference as well as on competition and rivalry. Our study also has broader implications as it helps explain when people do not respect social norms while competing—be it for rewards, for promotions, or in elections.

Thorsten Grohsjean, Henning Piezunka, Maren Mickele (2025), When colleagues compete outside the firm, Strategic Management Journal (forthcoming).

Abstract: Research Summary Collaboration among employees is the bedrock of an organization, but we suggest that it can be undermined by their extra-organizational affiliations. We point to the hidden but common constellation of two coworkers who are also affiliated with organizations that compete with one another. We hypothesize that such colleagues collaborate less with one another when performing on behalf of their shared employer. Using data from professional soccer, we provide empirical evidence. We outline implications for research on extra-organizational affiliations, intraorganizational collaboration, competition and rivalry, and social networks. Managerial Summary Imagine two soccer players who play for the same soccer club – but compete against one another when they perform on behalf of their national team (i.e., the two players have different nationalities). We show that the two soccer players collaborate less (i.e., play fewer passes to each other) at their club after encountering each other as opponents when performing on behalf of their national teams. This finding in the context of sports has implications for firms. Managers of the same firm may serve on boards of directors of companies that compete with each other, and employees may support political parties that compete – eventually hindering internal collaboration.

Sanghyun Park, Henning Piezunka, Linus Dahlander (2024), Coevolutionary Lock-In in External Search, Academy of Management Journal, 67 (1), pp. 262-288.

Abstract: While external search allows organizations to source diverse ideas from people outside the organization, it often generates a narrow set of nondiverse ideas. We theorize that this stems from an interplay between organizations’ idea selection and the external generation of ideas: an organization selects ideas shared by external contributors, and the external contributors, who strive to see their ideas selected, use the prior selection to infer what kind of ideas the organization is looking for, and to respond. Contributors whose ideas are misaligned with the organization’s selection tend to stop submitting ideas (i.e., self-selection) or adjust the ideas they submit so that they correspond (i.e., self-adjustment), resulting in a less diverse pool of ideas. Our central hypothesis is that the more consistent organizations are in their selection, the stronger the coevolutionary lock-in: organizations with greater selection consistency receive future ideas with lower content variety. We find support for these predictions by combining large-scale network analysis and natural language processing across a large number of organizations that use crowdsourcing. Our findings suggest a reconceptualization of external search as a two-way street: organizations are not simply passive receivers of ideas but send signals that shape the pool of ideas that externals share.

Abhishek Nagaraj and Henning Piezunka (2024), The Divergent Effect of Competition on Platforms: Deterring Recruits, Motivating Converts, Strategy Science , 9 (3), pp. 229-296.

Abstract: Knowledge platforms differ in how they source their knowledge; they can be categorized as traditional (e.g., Encyclopedia Britannica, Guide Michelin) or crowdsourced (e.g., Wikipedia, Yelp). Although research has compared and contrasted the two, we study how they compete with one another. In particular, we focus on how competition from traditional platforms affects volunteers’ contributions to crowdsourced platforms. We propose a divergent effect: competition increases individual contributions from volunteers who were already active before the entry of any competitor (pre-entry contributors). However, competition also hinders recruitment and therefore leads to a decrease in total contributions from the set of volunteers who are new to the platform in a given time period (newly recruited contributors). We suggest the first effect is driven by pre-entry contributors’ ideological attachment, whereas the second is driven by lower awareness of the platform postcompetitive entry. To test our theory, we leverage and examine how the phased entry of Google Maps in different countries affects contributions to OpenStreetMap, a crowdsourced mapping platform. We find the hypothesized divergent effects and provide suggestive evidence of the underlying mechanisms. We contribute to research on crowdsourcing, volunteers’ willingness to contribute, platform competition, and on the effect of competition on organizations more broadly.

Helge Klapper, Henning Piezunka, Linus Dahlander (2023), Peer Evaluations: Evaluating and being evaluated, Organization Science (forthcoming).

Abstract: Peer evaluations place organizational members in a dual role: they evaluate their peers and are being evaluated by their peers. We theorize that when evaluating their peers, they anticipate how their evaluations will be perceived and adjust their evaluations strategically to be evaluated more positively themselves when their peers assess them. Building on this overarching claim of role duality resulting in strategic peer evaluations, we focus on a dilemma that evaluating members face: they want to leverage their evaluations of peers to portray themselves as engaged and having high standards, but at the same time, they must be careful not to offend anyone as doing so may cause retaliation. We suggest that organizational members about to be evaluated resolve this dilemma by participating in more peer evaluations but carefully targeting which evaluations they participate in. We test our theory by analyzing peer evaluations on Wikipedia, supplemented by in-depth semistructured interviews. Our study informs research on peer evaluation and organizational design by revealing how being an evaluator and evaluated can make evaluations more strategic.

Fabian Gaessler and Henning Piezunka (2023), Training with AI: Evidence from chess computers, Strategic Management Journal, 44 (11), pp. 2724-2750.

Abstract: We suggest that AI can help decision-makers learn; specifically, that it can help them learn strategic interactions by serving as artificial training partners and thus help them to overcome a bottleneck of scarce human training partners. We present evidence from chess computers, the first widespread incarnation of AI. Leveraging the staggered diffusion of chess computers, we find that they did indeed help chess players improve by serving as a substitute for scarce human training partners. We also illustrate that chess computers were not a perfect substitute, as players training with them were not exposed to and thus did not learn to exploit idiosyncratic (“human”) mistakes. We discuss implications for research on learning, on AI in management and strategy, and on competitive advantage.

Henning Piezunka and Oliver Schilke (2023), The Dual Function of Organizational Structure: Aggregating and Shaping Individuals’ Votes, Organization Science, 34 (5), pp. 1914-1937.

Abstract: How do organizational structures influence organizational decision making? This article reveals organizational structures’ dual function: they both (1) aggregate and (2) shape individuals’ decisions. What makes this dual function so remarkable is that the two effects are diametrically opposed to one another. Ceteris paribus, a less stringent decision-making structure reduces the amount of support required for a given project to be greenlit at the organizational level, which should result in more investments getting approved. However, we find that this ceteris paribus assumption does not hold, because a less stringent decision-making structure also reduces individuals’ tendency to provide their support for an investment. Our experimental investigation of organizational voting provides evidence for our position that organizational structure plays an important role beyond mere aggregation: voting thresholds also affect individuals’ voting behavior. The combination of both effects explains why the organizational adoption of a new voting threshold may not yield the intended outcome.

Henning Piezunka, Vikas Aggarwal, Hart E. Posen (2022), The Aggregation Learning-Trade-Off, Organization Science, 33 (3), pp. 1095-1115.

Abstract: Organizational decision making that leverages the collective wisdom and knowledge of multiple individuals is ubiquitous in management practice, occurring in settings such as top management teams, corporate boards, and the teams and groups that pervade modern organizations. Decision-making structures employed by organizations shape the effectiveness of knowledge aggregation. We argue that decision-making structures play a second crucial role in that they shape the learning of individuals that participate in organizational decision making. In organizational decision making, individuals do not engage in learning by doing but, rather, in what we call learning by participating, which is distinct in that individuals learn by receiving feedback not on their own choices but, rather, on the choice made by the organization. We examine how learning by participating influences the efficacy of aggregation and learning across alternative decision-making structures and group sizes. Our central insight is that learning by participating leads to an aggregation–learning trade-off in which structures that are effective in aggregating information can be ineffective in fostering individual learning. We discuss implications for research on organizations in the areas of learning, microfoundations, teams, and crowds.

Henning Piezunka and Thorsten Grohsjean (2022), Collaborations that Hurt Firm Performance but Help Employees’ Careers, Strategic Management Journal, 44 (3), pp. 778-811.

Abstract: When a firm and a competitor collaborate with the same partner, they compete for the shared partner's resources and attention. Such “peer competition” has been shown to negatively affect a firm's access to resources and its performance. One might expect that also the employees’ careers to suffer as a result. However, we argue that the firm's employees benefit from such collaborations. They leverage these collaborations to build social capital—helping their mobility and careers. We find empirical support for our theory using a large sample dataset of video game companies. Our study points to an important yet hitherto neglected agency conflict: employees seek interfirm collaborations that benefit them personally but hurt their firm.