Research Interests
Dr. Edgell’s scholarship agenda expands upon his deep research commitment to diversity, multiculturalism, and ethical governance that came to fruition with his PhD. In his dissertation, Creativity and management in the media industry: Empirical analysis of North American independent magazines, he empirically tested how various forms of actor heterogeneity (i.e., cognitive, creative, and social) and dissonance positively influence organizational creativity outcomes, especially in media settings. The inspiration for this topic came from insight gained as an architectural designer and later as a media executive. From these experiences, he came to understand the dissimilarities in social identity constructions between networked divergent and convergent thinking actors. Currently, he is collaborating with Stanford University’s SIPX research team. He was selected to advise this project, an open innovation scholarly content network, on research pertaining to social network theory, intellectual property, public knowledge, and emerging markets. Recently, he was selected to facilitate the session, "Dynamics of Open Innovation", at the upcoming 2011 Academy of Management Annual Meeting. This past year, he partnered with a legal scholar from Stanford University to write an interdisciplinary theory of innovation, harm, and information networks titled, Two innovation paths: Predicting harm and benefit. This theory broadened and diversified the customary conceptions of independent variables used by governance researchers. Instead of traditional return on investment measures, it used firm-external stakeholder outcomes, in particular the harm and benefit experienced by users. For the future, he envisions a varied and collaborative research agenda that encompass four broad interdisciplinary themes: ethics and governance; change and meta-design; social (distributed) innovation and actor networks; and social enterprise. He has multiple papers in various stages of development for submission to peer-reviewed publications. These working papers include topics such as actor creativity profiles, heterogeneity and team creativity, creativity premium models, and reframing the evolving media industry. Other papers he is currently considering address the impact of media ownership diversity on encouraging socially responsible business practices and effective corporate governance in non-media industries. Prior to his PhD, he authored the seminar companion book, Profitable marketing and branding in the digital economy. In addition, he has written numerous action research reports and contributed to multiple creative design projects. Dr. Edgell’s diverse background has shaped his views on design, media, management, teaching, and scholarship. He actively questions and challenges the prevailing underlying research assumptions that dominate mainstream management and governance scholarship. He has broadened the standard change leadership discourse by introducing relevant research on design, systemic thinking, sustainability, and other non-owner stakeholder perspectives—all uncommon in traditional business schools. Furthermore, he has expanded the strategic management and ethics paradigms by incorporating diverse studies on emerging markets, women and minorities, and distributed leadership modes. Lastly, he continues to advise others on research that ranges from gender and cultural heterogeneity to the dynamically shifting media landscape. |
