Speakers
Jeremy Heng (ESSEC Singapour)
I am currently an Assistant Professor of Statistics in the Information Systems, Decision Sciences and Statistics Department at ESSEC Business School. Prior to this, I was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Statistics at Harvard University, supervised by Pierre Jacob. I completed my DPhil in Statistics in the Department of Statistics at University of Oxford, under the supervision of Arnaud Doucet.
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Title: How to fit individual-based transmission models?
Abstract: Individual-based transmission models have found applications in fields such as epidemiology, information diffusion, cyber security, and marketing science. These models involve stochastic rules that specify how a number of individuals would infect one another, recover or be removed from the population. Contrary to compartmental models which are widely-used, individual-based models do not assume interchangeability of individuals and that all pairwise contacts are equally likely. Such modelling flexibility comes at the price of high computational cost when fitting these models to data. I will discuss on-going research to design computationally feasible methods that are scalable to large population sizes.
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Srividya Jandhyala (ESSEC Singapour)
Srividya Jandhyala is an Associate Professor at ESSEC Business School. She was previously an Assistant Professor at George Washington University in Washington DC, and a fellow and visiting scholar at Princeton University.
Srividya studies the relationship between firms and governments, with a particular focus on conflicts between the two. Her inter-disciplinary research has been published in international peer-reviewed journals including Strategic Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and World Development.
She holds a Ph.D. from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, a M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and a B.Tech. from the University of Madras. At ESSEC, she teach courses on strategy and international business in the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral programs.
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Titre : Economic Nationalism and the Home Court Advantage
Résumé : Economic nationalism refers to government actions that enhance national interest by protecting and aiding domestic firms at the expense of foreign ones. While prior research has highlighted discriminatory laws and government policies, we contend that economic nationalism may manifest as policies that are non-discriminatory but are nonetheless unequally and differently enforced among domestic and foreign firms by actors entrusted to implement them. We explore this subtler mechanism of economic nationalism in the context of judicial rulings in property rights disputes. Through its interpretation and enforcement of policies and laws, we expect the legal system to create a disadvantage for foreign firms. In a sample of 58,754 intellectual property lawsuits in the United States between 1963 and 2016, we find domestic patent holders are 10% more likely to successfully defend their patents in lawsuits against foreign (compared to other domestic) firms. Similarly, foreign patent holders are 17% less likely to win against domestic (compared to other foreign) challengers. Our results are robust to controlling for firm and patent characteristics and appear unlikely to be driven by differences in legal capabilities. Thus, the legal system appears to be another source of economic nationalism, giving domestic firms the home-court advantage.
Isabelle Solal (ESSEC)
I am an Assistant Professor in the Management Department at ESSEC Business School, where I teach courses in Entrepreneurship and Organizational Behavior.
My research focuses on the mechanisms that lead to inequality in labor and financial markets. In particular, my work addresses the following questions: 1) how do audiences use gender to interpret ambiguous signals? 2) to what extent does gender influence career outcomes by shaping both actual and perceived preferences? and 3) how do organizational practices contribute to gendered work outcomes, including through unintended consequences of efforts to promote greater diversity? A secondary stream of research explores worker wellbeing, especially in the area of mental health.
I use archival data analysis and lab experiments to investigate these questions in contexts such as high-growth entrepreneurship, top level management, and scientific teams.
Before joining academia, I worked as an attorney specialized in investment disputes and sports law, and as a management consultant. I obtained my PhD in Management from INSEAD in July 2019. I also have an MBA from INSEAD and law degrees from King’s College London (LLB), Université de Paris I (Maitrise), and the College of Europe (LLM).
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‘Not My CEO’: Employee Reactions to the Threat of Female Leadership
(Joint work with Steffen Brenner and Georg Wernicke)
We explore the impact of gender on employee reactions to and support of their CEO. Employing the lens of group competition theory to understand the female leadership penalty, we theorize that negative reactions toward women in senior positions are motivated in part by the perceived threat these women pose to the existing gender hierarchy. As women increasingly move into positions previously held by men, and as diversity programs lead to shifts in the balance of power, gender is likely to become more salient and trigger negative reactions. Exploiting data from close to a million employee reviews of U.S. listed firms from Glassdoor.com, we show that female CEOs receive lower employee approval ratings compared to male CEOs, and that this is driven primarily by male employees. Our results are robust to controls for firm performance, reviewer ratings of employment conditions, as well as indicators of managerial quality as measured by educational credentials, board memberships, and other achievements. We further find that the organization’s diversity ratings moderate the relationship between CEO gender and employee approval, such that female CEOs are especially penalized among firms that have made substantial progress in promoting women and minorities. Implications for female leadership are discussed.
Amir Sepehri (ESSEC)
Dr. Amir Sepehri is a consumer psychologist. His research examines consumer information processing on online platforms. Particular areas of interest include: the psychology of charitable giving decisions; how location of emotions in text could reveal deceptive intentions; and how the practice of multi-tagging could result in negative outcomes on online retail platforms. In terms of methodology, he uses a wide range of tools from controlled lab experiments to supervised and unsupervised machine-learning methods to address his research questions. His findings have appeared in premier marketing and psychology journals such as the Journal of Consumer Psychology, the International Journal of Research in Marketing, and Social Psychological and Personality Science. Dr. Sepehri owes his PhD to Ivey Business School, Western University in Canada.
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Title: Passive Voice in Consumer Complaints
Abstract: Customers often have negative service experiences. But might a subtle way customers describe such experiences shed light on how likely they are to voice or escalate their complaints (e.g., share negative word of mouth or dispute an offered resolution)? A multimethod exploration, combining automated textual analysis of over 160,000 consumer complaints with experiments, demonstrates the important role of passive voice. Consumers who complain using passive voice are more likely to spread negative word of mouth or dispute the resolution offered by the company. Greater use of passive voice indicates consumers attribute more fault to the company (rather than themselves), which leads them to voice or escalate their complaint. These findings shed light on an understudied aspect of language (i.e., linguistic structure), deepen understanding of how language reflects attitudes and intentions, and provide insight into how managers should respond to dissatisfied customers.
Pierre Bachas (ESSEC)
I am an Assistant Professor of Finance at the ESSEC-Business School, on leave from the World Bank Development Research Group (DECRG). I received a PhD in Economics from UC Berkeley in 2016. I am also an affiliate at the EU-Tax Observatory and the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
My research interests are in Public Finance, Financial Inclusion and Development Economics. Here is a presentation of recent research.
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Title: ow has globalization affected the taxation of capital and labor across countries, and why?
Abstract: We build a new global database of effective tax rates on factor incomes covering 1965 to 2018. While labor taxation has steadily risen everywhere, we uncover an asymmetric evolution of capital taxation: effective tax rates on capital have fallen in OECD countries, but risen in developing countries since the mid-1990s. To explain this asymmetry, we show that the large increase in trade since the 1990s exerts two opposing forces: globalisation pushes countries into a "tax race to the bottom" to attract capital, but also improves countries' tax capacity, in particular via the share of output produced in large corporations where capital is easier to tax. This latter force was dominant in developing countries, but not in OECD countries ."
Harris Kyriakou (ESSEC)
Prof. Kyriakou is an Associate Professor at the ESSEC Business School, where he focuses on the intersection between collective and artificial intelligence. The overarching goal of his research is to provide insights into how organizations can create value beyond their typical boundaries and processes. His work and research have focused on crowd and AI enhanced product development, blockchain startups, as well as companies including Facebook, Kickstarter, Yelp, and Twitch.
His work has been supported by numerous organizations including the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Spanish government. Part of his work has been published in the leading business and information systems journals and conferences, including Academy of Management Review, MIS Quarterly, and the International Conference on Information Systems.
Prof. Kyriakou is also serving as an advisor on digitization issues for the European Commission. His research has received best paper awards from the Academy of Management (AoM), the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), and a best dissertation award. He has also received an outstanding associate editor award from the Academy of Management (AoM). Kyriakou holds a Ph.D. from Stevens Institute of Technology, an M.S. from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.Sc. from the University of Piraeus.
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Title: The Role of Form and Function Novelty in a Product’s Success
Abstract: Online innovation communities are increasingly becoming a primary source of innovation for organizations. Past research on product development processes has mostly focused on individual product characteristics, with novelty — meaning how uncommon a product is compared to preexisting ones — having a prominent role in these endeavors. However, while some have recommended striving for the development of novel products, others have advocated against novelty as it not only creates uncertainty, but also increases search costs for consumers.
In this work, we examined products developed in the largest open innovation community for 3D printed products to date, Thingiverse. In order to provide insights on the role of novelty in a product’s success, we collected more than 35,000 product designs that were created over 4.5 years by more than 8,000 creators.
Our work provides strong evidence that products that were novel either in terms of their form, or in terms of their function were used more than their counterparts. However, in contrast to past findings and this overall strong preference for novel products, consumption is lower when a product is novel both in terms of its form as well as in terms of its function. In addition, our work demonstrates how the structure of the design landscape — meaning products that preexist — affects the subsequent development of novel designs.
Understanding these relationships can help managers and contributors alike to predict which products are more likely to become successful. Our research also highlights the importance of studying design landscapes in general, rather than merely focusing on individual users or product designs, as well as provides practical advice on designing and managing online innovation communities.
Sara Rezaee Vessal (ESSEC)
I am an assistant professor of Operations Management Department at ESSEC Business School. My research focuses on collaboration within and between firms in the context of new product development, social responsible supply chain and production decisions. My research mainly includes analytical modeling using game theory, dynamic programming, and optimization methods. Recently, I added some empirical studies to expand my methodological approached toward research in operations and supply chain management area.
Prior to joining ESSEC Business School, I was PhD student at HEC Paris. I also visited University of Michigan, Stephen Ross School of Business for one year and half, during my PhD studies.
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Veronica Casarin (ESSEC)
Veronica Casarin holds a PhD in Business Studies from Cardiff University (UK) and a Master of Philosophy in Accounting from the London School of Economics and Political Science (UK). Prior to joining ESSEC, Veronica was a post-doctoral researcher at Ca' Foscari University of Venice (Italy), working on a EU funded project on the impact of public policies on firms' competitiveness. Veronica was also visiting researcher at HEC Paris and was part of the organizing committee of the Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Accounting Conference (IPA, Cardiff, 2012).
As part of her doctoral studies, Veronica has investigated the role of management accounting in the construction of innovation networks in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector. Veronica's research interests are mainly phenomenon-driven and revolve around the areas of accounting and valuation as social, institutional and organisational practices. Prior to her doctoral studies, she also conducted quantitative research and published in the areas of private equity, family business performances, and knowledge strategy.
Currently, her research focuses on the mutual shaping between budgeting, performance measurement and valuation devices, and innovation in the context of hybrid organizational forms. Veronica is also exploring the use of qualitative and narrative tools for evaluating the impact of EU and regional innovation policies.
Anne-Laure Fayard (NOVA BS)
Anne-Laure Fayard is Professor and ERA Chair in Social Innovation at Nova School of Business and Economics. She is also Visiting Research Professor at the Tandon School of Engineering of New York University. Anne-Laure is an ethnographer of work, whose interests involve collaboration, innovation, design and technology. Her recent research involves several projects on the future of work – on hybrid work as well as working with AI in organizations.
Anne-Laure’s research has been published in several leading journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, Information System Research and Harvard Business Review. She is also the author with Anca Metiu of The Power of Writing in Organizations and has co-edited with Raza Mir of The Routledge Companion to Anthropology and Business. Her research has been featured in major newspapers such as the New York Times, the Financial Times, and The Economist.
Prior to joining NOVA, Anne-Laure was a faculty member at New York University. She has also been faculty at INSEAD in Singapore and France. She has held visiting positions at the Center of Sociology of Innovation at Ecole des Mines in Paris, at Design London and the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group at the Imperial College Business School as well as at the London School of Economics.
Andrea Moraru-Arfire (ESSEC)
Andreea Moraru-Arfire joined the Department of Accounting and Management Control at ESSEC in 2017 as an Assistant Professor. Her research centers on the role of culture and gender on information intermediaries and financial reporting. Before joining ESSEC, Andreea visited the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, as a research fellow of the Swiss National Science Foundation. She earned her PhD in Finance from the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Her previous industry experience includes the European Commission, Groupe Société Générale, and the National Bank of Romania.
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Title: The Nexus of Corporate Disclosure and Investors' Information Needs: An Analysis Using Topic Modeling
Authors: Daphne Lui (ESSEC), Andreea Moraru-Arfire (ESSEC), Cong Tao (ESSEC)
Abstract: This paper investigates whether, and if so, for which topics, companies incorporate in their disclosures content discussed by individual and institutional investors to address their information needs. We use LDA, an increasingly popular machine learning technique, to identify firm-related topics discussed by individual (via tweets posted on Seeking Alpha) and institutional (via earnings conference call transcripts) investors and compare them with topics discussed in the subsequent MD&A section of the 10Ks. We find a positive and statistically significant association between the proportion of text dedicated to a subset of topics in individual investors’ discussions (i.e., financing activities, investment and future growth, R&D, and revenue forecast) and the proportion of text on the same topics in subsequent firm disclosures. A similar relation holds for all topics regarding the discussions of institutional investors. Consistent with the notion that firms weigh the costs and benefits of addressing investors’ information demands, we find that this association is stronger when the tone of investors’ discussions is more negative, for more powerful investors, and for firms subject to lower proprietary costs. Overall, our findings extend the research on corporate disclosures and their content.
Elysée Aristide Houndetoungan (CY Cergy Paris University)
I am a tenure track Assistant Professor of Economics at Thema, Cy Cergy Paris Université.
My research interests are in the fields of Econometrics, Social Networks, and Applied Microeconomics.
Particularly, I work on econometric and microeconomic issues in an environment where agents interact through networks. I am interested in inference issues in such an environment, including Bayesian inference. I also work on health economics topics, including issues related to the quality of care and physician payment methods.
I received my PhD in Economics from Université Laval in 2021.
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Title: Inference for Sequential Conditional M-estimators (with Abdoul Haki Maoude)
Abstract: Multiple-stage estimation is a widely used technique in econometrics to handle issues such as endogeneity, missing data, and latent variables. This approach involves estimating controls, which are then plugged into a model that can be estimated using conventional methods. The asymptotic properties of the resulting "plug-in" estimator are of interest for hypothesis tests and can be difficult to determine as they depend on the precision of the control estimator. We examine these properties for a general class of control estimators when the final-stage estimator is an M-estimator. Our approach allows for the use of Bayesian or nonparametric estimators for the controls. We introduce a simple simulation method to approximate the variance and distribution of the plug-in estimator, taking into account the uncertainty of the control estimates. Our method can be easily applied to complex models as we do not compute the control and plug-in estimators on several subsamples, as is required in the Bootstrap approach. We applied the method to an auction model to study bidder behavior in the weekly open market operations conducted by the Central Bank of West African States.
Xavier Lambin (ESSEC)
Xavier Lambin is an engineer from École Polytechnique and École des Mines. After two years of strategy consulting, he completed a PhD in Industrial Economics at the Toulouse School of Economics. He then became an assistant professor at Grenoble Ecole de Management, before joining ESSEC in 2021. His research focuses on market design for the digital economy and electricity markets. His techniques are both theoretical and empirical.
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Title: Riding together: eliciting travelers' preferences for long-distance carpooling
Abstract: Most seats in private cars are empty when drivers hit the road. Carpooling could thus represent a low-cost strategy to reduce carbon emissions in the transportation sector. Using revealed preference data from actual long-distance carpooling trips in France, we estimate passengers' preferences for the different characteristics of a ride. We find that passengers are highly price-elastic and value significantly the convenience of pick-up and drop-off locations. In contrast, their value of time once in the car is significantly lower than typical reference values. Finally, we discuss the effectiveness of a number of counterfactual policies aimed at promoting carpooling.
Marie-Léandre Gomez (ESSEC)
Marie-Léandre Gomez is Associate Professor in the Accounting-Management Control Department at ESSEC. Her research focuses on learning dynamics and management tools use on activity. Her two current main research projects focus on Michelin’s impact on creativity of starred chefs, and on medical teams coordination in a crisis situation (COMED project).
Marie-Léandre Gomez teaches in Grande Ecole / Ms in Management programs, Executive Education programs and PhD. She is Academic Director (with Gérard de Pouvourville) of Management Général Hospitalier (General Hospital Management). From 2013 to 2016, she coordinated the Management Control team, and from 2014 to 2016, she was an elected member of the Professors Senate, the Academic Committee, the Ethical Committee, and of the Academic Evaluation Commission of ESSEC. In 2017-2018, she was Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and at King’s College. Since 2019, she represents the Research Professors at the Board of Overseers of ESSEC.
Marie Kerveillant (ESSEC)
Marie Kerveillant is a research engineer at Essec. A former student of Essec, she obtained her PhD at Essec in 2017 on the theme of nuclear risk governance. After a post-doctorate at ESCP on the same research topics in 2017 and 2019, she joined ESSEC thanks to a Paris Seine initiative research grant between 2019 and 2021 to study the organization of medical support for RAID (tactical medicine) during major security crises, such as the terrorist attacks of recent years. From 2022, she is funded by the Ile de France region on a research project studying the role of the crisis medical director in the management of the health crisis in the hospital. Alongside this research activity, she has been deputy academic director of the MGO program since May 2019 and teaches within the program, and in other programs, strategic cost management and the management of uncertain and complex situations.
Philippe Gaussier (CY Cergy Paris University)
Philippe Gaussier is a professor of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at CY Cergy Paris University and head of the master's degree in tIntelligent and Communicating Systems (master SIC). He was a junior member of the Institut Universitaire de France. He created and directed the neurocybernetics team from 1996 to 2019. He uses robots as a tool and model to study in "real" conditions the coherence and dynamics of different cognitive models (ecological and developmental perspective). New models are proposed and lead to new neurobiological or psychological experiments. Current robotic applications include autonomous, online learning for visual navigation, including autonomous vehicle control and object and robot arm control. Currently, his work focuses on the modeling of cognitive mechanisms involved in visual perception, motivated navigation, and action selection, and on the study of dynamic interactions between individuals (imitation abilities, social interactions, collective intelligence). His research includes the modeling of the hippocampus and its relationship with the prefrontal cortex, basal ganglia and other cortical structures such as the parietal and temporal areas. In a recent collaboration with Dr. Robert Lustig (UCSF) on the modeling of the amygdala and its involvement in the development of various mental pathologies, they are trying to propose a model that accounts for addictive behaviors, depression and post-traumatic shock.
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Title: AI and robotics: the importance of an approach involving cognitive sciences
Abstract: While there’s a lot of buzz around AI, I’d like to put this field in perspective by quickly summarizing how we got there and discussing what AI and robots are really capable of doing today. My critique will then focus on the use made in recent years of AI and robotics that tends to robotize humans to fill the gaps of current AI. Finally, I will talk about the work we are doing on the modeling of cognitive mechanisms and the interest of using robots as models to progress in domains as different as place recognition, the construction of autobiographical memories or resilience to stress through the importance of rhythm in interactions.