Rangapriya (Priya) Kannan is Professor of Entrepreneurship at University of Exeter Business School. She is an Associate Professor and the Founding Director of The Entrepreneurship & Innovation Catalyzer at University of San Diego’s School of Business. At USD, Priya is also an Affiliate Faculty at the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies, the first stand-alone school of peace and justice in the United States. Priya received her Ph.D. from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. She was also a visiting Research Fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School over her sabbatical.
Priya’s primary research stream focuses on how innovators and entrepreneurs negotiate constraints in their environmental contexts by engaging in creative resourcing to accomplish their innovations. She has papers published in several business and management journals such as the Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Organization Studies, and Journal of Business Ethics. Priya has earned several awards recognizing her dual excellence in teaching and research and for her contributions to institution building including the prestigious Steber Professorship, a distinguished university award at the University of San Diego.
To continue to bring real world perspectives into her research and teaching, Priya continues to be affiliated as a Senior Associate Consultant with Management Systems Consulting Corporation, a niche strategy consulting firm with Fortune 100 clients, as well as high potential entrepreneurial firms.
Nationality: American
Qualifications
Research interests
- Entrepreneurs, Founders & Innovators
- Resourcing
- Reframing
- Strategy-as-Practice
- Entrepreneurship-as-Practice
Key publications | Publications by category | Publications by year
Publications by category
Journal articles
Kannan-Narasimhan R (In Press). How Corporate Entrepreneurs Navigate Rule Breaking Behaviors to Create Positive Impressions.
International Review of EntrepreneurshipAbstract:
How Corporate Entrepreneurs Navigate Rule Breaking Behaviors to Create Positive Impressions
This study uses an Entrepreneurship as Practice (EAP) approach, specifically Goffman’s dramaturgical lens, to address: what practices do corporate entrepreneurs use to cultivate positive impressions, while simultaneously engaging in rule-breaking to accomplish their innovations? While decision-makers in large organizations typically disapprove of employees who break rules, corporate entrepreneurs often see rules as inhibiting innovation. Corporate entrepreneurs face an interesting conundrum: they must undermine organizational processes to launch their innovation, while simultaneously gaining decision-makers’ support.
Although extant theory suggests that successful innovators operate under the radar, it remains silent on the specific practices they engage in to create and maintain positive impressions with their decision makers. Based on archival data and 138 interviews with decision-makers and corporate entrepreneurs, I find that through dramaturgical realization the latter successfully demonstrated that their rule-breaking was pro-social in nature.
This study’s theoretical contributions lie in using the newly emerging EAP lens to identify how corporate entrepreneurs’ impression management practices connect with the practices of the larger organization, thereby contributing to both corporate entrepreneurship and impression management literatures. This study’s practical contributions lie in sensitizing corporate entrepreneurs on how to manage impressions when engaging in (prosocial) rule-breaking.
Abstract.
Watson A, Obal M, Kannan RP (2021). Expect Success, Get Success How Self-fulfilling Prophecy can Impact New Product DevelopmentLeaders who help their product development teams build and sustain confidence can create expectations of success that translate into improved success of new products.
RESEARCH-TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT,
64(4), 29-36.
Author URL.
DOI.
Kannan‐Narasimhan RP, Lawrence BS (2018). How innovators reframe resources in the strategy‐making process to gain innovation adoption.
Strategic Management Journal,
39(3), 720-758.
DOI.
Obal M, Kannan-Narasimhan R, Ko G (2016). Whom Should We Talk to? Investigating the Varying Roles of Internal and External Relationship Quality on Radical and Incremental Innovation Performance.
Journal of Product Innovation Management,
33, 136-147.
DOI.
Chen RR, Kannan-Narasimhan RP (2014). Formal integration archetypes in ambidextrous organizations.
R&D Management,
45(3), 267-286.
DOI.
Kannan-Narasimhan RP (2014). Organizational Ingenuity in Nascent Innovations: Gaining Resources and Legitimacy through Unconventional Actions.
Organization Studies,
35(4), 483-509.
Abstract:
Organizational Ingenuity in Nascent Innovations: Gaining Resources and Legitimacy through Unconventional Actions
How do innovators in large organizations acquire resources for their early-stage, untested, unproven innovations? Multiple established projects compete for scarce resources in large organizations. Innovators pursuing early-stage, untested innovations face considerable constraints in accessing scarce resources. Literature enumerates various sanctioned and unsanctioned methods by which innovators acquire resources, such as borrowing, begging, scavenging, amplifying, bootlegging, and finagling – defined as obtaining resources through deceitful or underhanded methods. However, few theories explain how innovators act unconventionally, elude constraints to acquire resources, and yet gain acceptance for their innovations. To address this question, this study uses field data from nine organizations based primarily in Silicon Valley. Successful innovators employ organizational ingenuity or creative solutions to gain resources in the face of constraints. They employ two types of ingenuity: material ingenuity, creatively re-imagining the use of resources; and process ingenuity, using creative processes to gain resources. In the early stages, innovators focus on managing their innovation’s legitimacy and use managerial attention as a key lever. They maximize managerial attention when employing material ingenuity and minimize managerial attention when utilizing process ingenuity. Theories highlighting the relationship between legitimacy and resource acquisition suggest that individuals gain resources when they establish legitimacy. Conversely, study results indicate that the process of gaining resources can lend legitimacy to early-stage innovations.
Abstract.
DOI.
Chapters
Kannan-Narasimhan R (2021). Trivitron’s India-Born Global Story: Moving up the Value Chain by Investing in the Power of People. In (Ed)
Trivitron's India-born Global Story Moving up the Value Chain by Investing in the Power of People.
Abstract:
Trivitron’s India-Born Global Story: Moving up the Value Chain by Investing in the Power of People
Abstract.
Publications by year
In Press
Kannan-Narasimhan R (In Press). How Corporate Entrepreneurs Navigate Rule Breaking Behaviors to Create Positive Impressions.
International Review of EntrepreneurshipAbstract:
How Corporate Entrepreneurs Navigate Rule Breaking Behaviors to Create Positive Impressions
This study uses an Entrepreneurship as Practice (EAP) approach, specifically Goffman’s dramaturgical lens, to address: what practices do corporate entrepreneurs use to cultivate positive impressions, while simultaneously engaging in rule-breaking to accomplish their innovations? While decision-makers in large organizations typically disapprove of employees who break rules, corporate entrepreneurs often see rules as inhibiting innovation. Corporate entrepreneurs face an interesting conundrum: they must undermine organizational processes to launch their innovation, while simultaneously gaining decision-makers’ support.
Although extant theory suggests that successful innovators operate under the radar, it remains silent on the specific practices they engage in to create and maintain positive impressions with their decision makers. Based on archival data and 138 interviews with decision-makers and corporate entrepreneurs, I find that through dramaturgical realization the latter successfully demonstrated that their rule-breaking was pro-social in nature.
This study’s theoretical contributions lie in using the newly emerging EAP lens to identify how corporate entrepreneurs’ impression management practices connect with the practices of the larger organization, thereby contributing to both corporate entrepreneurship and impression management literatures. This study’s practical contributions lie in sensitizing corporate entrepreneurs on how to manage impressions when engaging in (prosocial) rule-breaking.
Abstract.
2021
Watson A, Obal M, Kannan RP (2021). Expect Success, Get Success How Self-fulfilling Prophecy can Impact New Product DevelopmentLeaders who help their product development teams build and sustain confidence can create expectations of success that translate into improved success of new products.
RESEARCH-TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT,
64(4), 29-36.
Author URL.
DOI.
Kannan-Narasimhan R (2021). Trivitron’s India-Born Global Story: Moving up the Value Chain by Investing in the Power of People. In (Ed)
Trivitron's India-born Global Story Moving up the Value Chain by Investing in the Power of People.
Abstract:
Trivitron’s India-Born Global Story: Moving up the Value Chain by Investing in the Power of People
Abstract.
2018
Kannan‐Narasimhan RP, Lawrence BS (2018). How innovators reframe resources in the strategy‐making process to gain innovation adoption.
Strategic Management Journal,
39(3), 720-758.
DOI.
2016
Obal M, Kannan-Narasimhan R, Ko G (2016). Whom Should We Talk to? Investigating the Varying Roles of Internal and External Relationship Quality on Radical and Incremental Innovation Performance.
Journal of Product Innovation Management,
33, 136-147.
DOI.
2014
Chen RR, Kannan-Narasimhan RP (2014). Formal integration archetypes in ambidextrous organizations.
R&D Management,
45(3), 267-286.
DOI.
Kannan-Narasimhan RP (2014). Organizational Ingenuity in Nascent Innovations: Gaining Resources and Legitimacy through Unconventional Actions.
Organization Studies,
35(4), 483-509.
Abstract:
Organizational Ingenuity in Nascent Innovations: Gaining Resources and Legitimacy through Unconventional Actions
How do innovators in large organizations acquire resources for their early-stage, untested, unproven innovations? Multiple established projects compete for scarce resources in large organizations. Innovators pursuing early-stage, untested innovations face considerable constraints in accessing scarce resources. Literature enumerates various sanctioned and unsanctioned methods by which innovators acquire resources, such as borrowing, begging, scavenging, amplifying, bootlegging, and finagling – defined as obtaining resources through deceitful or underhanded methods. However, few theories explain how innovators act unconventionally, elude constraints to acquire resources, and yet gain acceptance for their innovations. To address this question, this study uses field data from nine organizations based primarily in Silicon Valley. Successful innovators employ organizational ingenuity or creative solutions to gain resources in the face of constraints. They employ two types of ingenuity: material ingenuity, creatively re-imagining the use of resources; and process ingenuity, using creative processes to gain resources. In the early stages, innovators focus on managing their innovation’s legitimacy and use managerial attention as a key lever. They maximize managerial attention when employing material ingenuity and minimize managerial attention when utilizing process ingenuity. Theories highlighting the relationship between legitimacy and resource acquisition suggest that individuals gain resources when they establish legitimacy. Conversely, study results indicate that the process of gaining resources can lend legitimacy to early-stage innovations.
Abstract.
DOI.
- Strategic Management
- Sustainable Business Models
- Innovation & Entrepreneurship