Sarath Balachandran

Sarath Balachandran's research examines how collaborative relationships between firms can enable (or indeed constrain) innovation. Technological advances are making innovation in many industries an increasingly egalitarian and decomposable endeavor by improving information access and lowering the costs of entrepreneurship. Consequently, firms are increasingly having to look beyond their boundaries in their pursuit of innovation. This has led to an explosion in interfirm partnerships involving different types of firms and a multitude of collaborative structures.

Sarath studies how the implications of these partnerships for firms are shaped by factors at two levels of analysis. In one stream of work, he adopts a ‘micro’ perspective to delve into the role of the people whose interactions form the basis for these relationships. He investigates how the backgrounds and incentives of these individuals shape the formation and evolution of these relationships as well as the exchanges that occur between the firms. In another stream of work, he takes a more ‘macro’ view to examine how institutions – both formal institutions like laws or regulations and informal ones like social or cultural norms – influence the formation of these relationships and the outcomes they lead to. At London Business School, Sarath teaches the elective on Mergers, Acquisitions and Alliances. Prior to his academic career, Sarath worked for Unilever, first in logistics at a factory in Atlanta and subsequently in post-merger integration at the company’s headquarters in London.

Publications

• Mi casa es tu casa: immigrant entrepreneurs as pathways to foreign venture capital investments
  Balachandran S; Hernandez E
  Strategic Management Journal 2021 Online first

• Do institutional reforms perpetuate or mitigate the Matthew effect? Intellectual property rights and access to international alliances
  Balachandran S; Hernandez E
  Strategy science 2019 Vol 4:2 p 61-174

• Networks and innovation: accounting for structural and institutional sources of recombination in brokerage triads
  Balachandran S; Hernandez E
  Organization Science 2018 Vol 29:1 p 80-99

Working papers

2019

• Inside out: towards the integration of macro and micro factors in the study of interfirm relationships
  Balachandran S

• Mi casa es tu casa: immigrant entrepreneurs as pathways to foreign venture capital investments
  Balachandran S; Hernandez E
  Social Sciences Research Network

• Pipes or shackles? How ties to incumbents shape startup innovation
  Balachandran S

• Unlocking value from startups' ties to established firms: the role of the entrepreneurs' background
  Balachandran S