Slack Time and Innovation

Ajay Agrawal, Christian Catalini and Avi Goldfarb

No 21134, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The extant literature linking slack time to innovation focuses on how slack time facilitates creative activities such as ideation, experimentation, and prototype development. We turn attention to how slack time may enable activities that are less creative but still important for innovation, namely mundane, execution-oriented tasks. First, we document the main effect: a sharp rise in innovative projects posted on a major crowdfunding platform when colleges are on break. Next, we report timing and project type evidence consistent with the causal interpretation that slack time drives innovation. Finally, we present a series of results consistent with the mundane task mechanism but not with the traditional creativity-related explanations. We do not rule out the possibility that creativity benefits from slack time. Instead, we introduce the idea that mundane, execution-oriented tasks, such as those associated with launching a crowdfunding campaign (e.g., administration, planning, promotion), are an important input to innovation that may benefit significantly from slack time.

JEL-codes: J22 L26 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent, nep-ino, nep-lma, nep-neu and nep-ppm
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Published as Ajay Agrawal & Christian Catalini & Avi Goldfarb & Hong Luo, 2018. "Slack Time and Innovation," Organization Science, vol 29(6), pages 1056-1073.

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