David Pacuku: The grass is (not) always greener on the other side: Assessment of external knowledge

David Pacuku (Kühne Logistics University), Kenneth Husted (University of Auckland), Senjina Michailova (University of Auckland), Christina Raasch  (Kühne Logistics University)

Even though organizations increasingly rely on externally generated knowledge to innovate and solve problems, evaluators tend to prefer internally generated ideas over externally sourced ones. Research has mainly examined this phenomenon, known as the not-invented-here (NIH) syndrome, through the lens of attitude theory. However, by restricting its focus to NIH, this literature has examined how negative attitudes strengthen or weaken while leaving indifferent, ambivalent, and especially positive attitudes unexplained. Because positive attitudes may lead evaluators to favor external ideas for their origin rather than their merits, we focus on this overlooked potential source of bias, which we call the better-found-elsewhere (BFE) syndrome. Drawing on qualitative interviews and functional attitude theory, we develop a model showing how favorable and unfavorable responses to external knowledge arise independently and combine into distinct attitudes. We find that attitudes form through two appraisals: whether external knowledge helps evaluators achieve their goals and whether external knowledge threatens evaluators’ control. While goal enablement without control threat produces BFE, control threat without goal enablement produces NIH. We contribute to the literature on external knowledge evaluation by extending its view beyond the strength of negative attitudes to the valence of attitudes toward external knowledge. 

David Pacuku started the PhD program at Kühne Logistics University in July 2022 under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Christina Raasch. His research focuses on innovation management, more specifically on the ideation, evaluation and implementation of innovations. Contributing to the “FabCity” project in Hamburg funded by the centre for digitalization and technology research of the Bundeswehr (dtec.bw), whose main goal is to promote a decentralized, digital, interlinked and urban production, his analysis gives emphasis to a local, population-driven development and implementation of innovative solutions.

David completed his Bachelor of Science in International Economics and his Master of Science in Economics at the University of Tübingen. Focusing on innovation economics, his master’s thesis dealt with the question of how the international transfer of technology contributes to growth in the global economy.  

During his studies David gained empirical experience working as an intern at the Roland Berger Institute. His work was especially characterized by the assistance in the preparation of publications in a broad field of economic topics, in which the analysis of data and their further processing played a major role.