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Review panel consensus and post-decision commercial performance: a study of early stage technologies

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Abstract

We examine the ability of review panels to predict commercial success when evaluating early-stage technologies from small business. Specifically we examined whether a screening process resulted in greater consensus among grant panel members, to what extent certain panel members “stuck” to their evaluations, and whether information sharing and panel consensus resulted in better predictions of commercial success. In general, we found that expert panel members tend to move toward consensus after discussion, with technical experts being the most “sticky”. While information sharing does not lead to better prediction, increasing consensus among panel members does indicate a slight improvement in prediction accuracy.

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Notes

  1. Other commonly used measures of with-in group agreement are the rwg (single item) and rwg(j) (multi-item) (James et al. 1984). Since we are looking at the effect of consensus on success over time, and since the theoretical expected random variation between the pre- and post-presentation scores should be the same for each technology, we chose the simpler measures of range and standard deviation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, Cameron School of Business, University of North Carolina Wilmington, 601 South College Road, Wilmington, NC, 28403, USA

    Craig S. Galbraith & Jessica Mesmer-Magnus

  2. Department of Management, College of Business Administration, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA, 92182–8236, USA

    Alex F. DeNoble

  3. Entrepreneurial Management Center, San Diego State University, 5250 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA, 92182, USA

    Sanford B. Ehrlich

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  1. Craig S. Galbraith
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Galbraith, C.S., DeNoble, A.F., Ehrlich, S.B. et al. Review panel consensus and post-decision commercial performance: a study of early stage technologies. J Technol Transf 35, 253–281 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-009-9122-6

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