Published Research Papers
"Zooming in or zooming out: Entrants' product portfolios in the nascent drone industry"
Shermon, A., & Moeen, M
Stategic Management Journal, July 2022
Faced with demand uncertainty and heterogeneity in a nascent industry, entrants often consider how many customer segments to serve by tailoring the usage breadth of their product portfolios. Portfolio usage breadth is the extent to which products in a portfolio collectively span distinct customer segments. We suggest that when entrants have use experience in contexts that are potential users of the new product, their portfolios exhibit low usage breadth, due to demand‐oriented cognition and knowledge. The relationship is stronger for diversifying entrants relative to startups. The empirical context is the U.S. commercial drone industry, wherein entrants need to adapt their product portfolios for five robust and distinct customer segments of photography, short‐distance inspection, long‐distance surveying, agriculture, and aerial supply chain management.
Ongoing Research
*all titles altered to preserve anonymity in the review process
Is A/B Testing Always Beneficial for Startups?
(with Ryan Allen, Todd Hall, and Travis Howell)
When Does Managerial Hierarchy Help or Hinder Product Adaptation in Startups?
(with Ryan Allen, Todd Hall, and Travis Howell)
How Do Solo-Founders Shape Organizational Structure in Startups?
(with Ryan Allen, Todd Hall, and Travis Howell)
Which Firms Truly Benefit From Open-Sourced Technology?
(with Manav Raj)
How Do Startups Acquire Resources in Deep-Tech Nascent Industries?
(with Sandip Bisui)
How Does Regulatory Uncertainty Shape Timing of Startups' Entry in New Industries?
(with Joachim Henkel & Virginia Herbst)
How Does the Market for Technology Shape the Direction of Startups' Inventive Activity?
(solo-authored)
Recent Academic Presentations
2026:
Munich Summer Institute
Sumantra Ghoshal Strategy Conference at London Business School
Global Entrepreneurship & Innovation Research Conference at Cambridge University
2025:
Industry Studies Annual Conference
Barcelona School of Economics Summer Forum on Entrepreneurship
Sumantra Ghoshal Strategy Conference at London Business School
1st Lone Star Management Research Consortium at Texas A&M
7th INSEAD Doriot Entrepreneurship Conference
2024 and before:
SP Jain Institute of Management & Research (2024)
Stakeholders, Property Rights, and Entrepreneurship: New Frontiers for Foundational Questions at Syracuse University (2023)
Consortium on Competitiveness and Cooperation (CCC) Doctoral Conference (2022)
Research Policy Online Conference for Early Career Researchers (2021)
East Coast Doctoral Online Conference (2021)
Academy of Management Annual Conference (2022)
Strategic Management Society Special/Annual Conference (2018, 2020, 2021)
Other Talks
"Bringing 'Why' Into the Classroom" (with Greg Dess)
9th Annual All-Campus Mini-Conference, hosted by the UT Dallas Center for Teaching and Learning (2025)
"Considerations in Leveraging Overlapping Datasets for Multiple Research Projects"
Jindal School of Management, UT Dallas (2025)
"Creating Systems for Facilitating Early-Stages of An Academic Career"
Jindal School of Management, UT Dallas (2024)
"Building & Managing Academic Relationships"
Virtual at York University, Canada (2024)