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PhD Student
Seth studies employee entrepreneurship and employee
mobility. In his dissertation, he examines how the failure of rival
organizations creates opportunities for employees to quit their jobs and start
new firms. His dissertation has been recognized with a Kauffman Foundation
Fellowship, and his job market paper won the Best PhD Student Paper Award at the
2012 Strategic Management Society meetings.
Outside his dissertation, Seth has a paper forthcoming at
Strategic Management
Journal and a paper conditionally accepted by
Academy of
Management Journal. He is also co-PI on a grant from the National
Science Foundation to study the entrepreneurship and mobility of industrial
scientists.
Dissertation title
Entrepreneurship, Mobility and Rent Appropriation: Evidence from the Death of Coworkers and Rival Firms
Dissertation Summary
My three essay dissertation examines how macro-level changes in the competitive environment influence the micro-level opportunities for employees to start new firms or capture more value within their current organizations. I first examine how the unexpected failure of rival firms influences the mobility, entrepreneurship, and compensation of healthy firm employees. I next analyze how a manager’s exit from the firm affects the productivity and bargaining power of remaining workers, using gender differences to identify potential coalitions with the organization. In each essay, I analyze confidential US Census microdata on the legal services industry, and I use unexpected deaths of law firm partners as a source of exogenous variation. The results have important theoretical and practical implications for questions ranging from the origins of firms to wealth inequality and gender-based differences in productivity and bargaining power.
Dissertation Chair: Rajshree Agarwal
Dissertation Committee Members
Primary Research Areas
- Employee Entrepreneurship
- Employee Mobility
- Bargaining Power
Primary Teaching Interests
Publications
Seth Carnahan, Rajshree Agarwal, Ben Campbell. Heterogeneity in Turnover: The Effect of Relative Compensation Dispersion of Firms on the Employee Mobility and Entrepreneurship of Extreme Performers.
Strategic Management Journal (forthcoming).
Seth Carnahan, Deepak Somaya. Alumni Effects and Relative Relational Advantage: The Impact on Outsourcing when Your Client Hires from Your Competitors.
Academy of Management Journal (conditional acceptance). Winner, Best PhD Student Paper Award, 2011 SMS Conference in Miami Runner-up, Best Paper Award, 2011 SMS Conference in Miami
Working Papers
Seth Carnahan. The Bright Side of Death: Entrepreneurship by Employees of Existing Firms following the Failure of Rival Organizations (job market paper)
Winner, Best PhD Student Paper Award, 2012 SMS Conference in Miami.
Revising for resubmission to Administrative Science Quarterly
Seth Carnahan, Ben Campbell, Rajshree Agarwal, April Franco. Birds of a Feather Flock
Together: How and Why New Firms Overcome Two-Sided Labor Market Uncertainty (outside dissertation)
Winner, 2011 DRUID Conference Most Innovative Paper Award.
Seth Carnahan. Does the Exit of a Highly Paid Woman from the Firm Increase or Decrease Her Female Colleagues’ Earnings? Evidence from Unexpected Deaths in the Legal Services Industry.
Works in Progress
Seth Carnahan. Rent Appropriation after the Failure of Competitor Organizations.
2nd Essay. Completing empirical analyses.
Honors and Awards
2012 Strategy Research Foundation Fellowship
2012 Kauffman Dissertation Fellow
National Science Foundation Grant for Inter-Industry Differences in the Antecedents and Consequences of Industrial Scientists Mobility and Entrepreneurship Decisions. Co-Principal Investigator with Rajshree Agarwal, Ben Campbell and Martin Ganco ($852,471).
2012 Best PhD Student Paper, Strategic Management Society
2012 Allen Nash Award for Outstanding Doctoral Student, Robert H. Smith School of Business (college-level award for research and service contributions)
2012 CCC Meeting, invited participant
2011 Best PhD Student Paper, Strategic Management Society
2011 Best Paper, Strategic Management Society (Runner-up)
References
Other
Special Sworn Researcher, US Census, 2009-present
Deloitte & Touche LLP, St. Louis, MO, 2007-2008
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