Organizational adoption of innovative operational practices

INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

Speaker : Antoine Feylessoufi

Research Associate in the Covid-19 response team of the University of Cambridge,

Judge Business School and hold an honorary appointment with Public Health England (PHE)

Zoom : https://hec-fr.zoom.us/j/95272857685?pwd=cmZTU1ozNW1ZMUJ3VERzMlRKQXhBZz…
Meeting ID: 952 7285 7685 Passcode: 935275

Abstract :
Most large organizations face challenges when trying to effectively adopt innovative operational practices that substitute previously used ones. We explore how the presence of social comparisons (behind-averse or ahead-seeking) gives rise to strategic behaviors from the adopters, and shapes the eventual adoption across an organization. We develop an evolutionary game theoretic model to account for the individual decisions to adopt, and we identify circumstances when the economically better practice may not be adopted. Behind-averse social comparisons create an endogenous bandwagon effect, whereby full adoption or no-adoption occurs depending on the critical mass of initial adopters. In contrast, the presence of ahead-seeking comparisons leads to the coexistence of all practices. This stems from the attempts of adopters to differentiate from each other. We also study how an organization’s reward systems moderate adoption outcomes innon-intuitive ways. Specifically, collective bonus rewards may limit the coexistence of the practices under ahead-seeking comparisons, in favor of full adoption, while collective competitive rewards play a key role in the adoption of high risk new practices under behind-averse social comparisons.

Pdf: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3644499

Bio :
"My research focuses on understanding and operation alising the adoption of innovations in organisations. Specifically, I build on notions of behavioural biases, team incentives and population dynamics to explain and influence patterns of adoption. This research agenda has been guided by real-world challenges. For instance, my PhD dissertation (awarded the 2020 INFORMS TIMES Best Dissertation Award) and one of my papers (invited to re-submit at Management Science) were motivated by a research visit in 2015 to the United Nations for Industrial Development (UNIDO)."