Temporal Modes of Resourcing: Evidence from Concurrent and Retrospective Drug Repurposing

If you wish to attend, please send an email in due time to Mariana Stori.

Abstract

Understanding how resources obtain value is a central question for organizations. The literature on resourcing has proposed that objects become valuable resources in practice—that is, through practices that make objects useful in situ—and explores how value is extracted from their use. While a resourcing perspective assumes that resources obtain value in situ, the temporal dynamics of resourcing—the interplay between the changing value of resources over time and resourcing practices—remains elusive. Drug repurposing is an emerging problem-solving approach in the field of drug discovery and development aimed at finding new uses for existing drugs in the pharmaceutical industry. Building on a qualitative longitudinal study of drug repurposing, we explore the temporal dynamics of resourcing. We identify two temporal modes of repurposing, concurrent and retrospective, which constitute different configurations of four clustered practices of repurposing: generating a knowledge base, scoping, algorithmic problem solving, and outcome interpretation. Based on the data, we inductively theorize that repurposing (i.e., finding additional uses for existing objects) is imperative for creating value from resources. By elucidating repurposing practices, our study elaborates resourcing literature on how concurrent and retrospective repurposing become necessary conditions for the creation of value in use.