When Digital Technologies Enable and Threaten Occupational Identity: The Delicate Balancing Act of Data Scientists

Authors: Emmanuelle Vaast and Alain Pinsonneault Publication: MIS Quarterly, Forthcoming Abstract:

Occupations are increasingly embedded with and affected by digital technologies. These technologies both enable and threaten occupational identity and create two important tensions: they make the persistence of an occupation possible while also potentially rendering it obsolete and they bring about both similarity and distinctiveness of an occupation with regard to other occupations. Based on the critical case study of an online community dedicated to data science, we investigate longitudinally how data scientists address the two tensions of occupational identity associated with digital technologies and reach transient syntheses in terms of “optimal distinctiveness” and “persistent extinction.” We propose that identity work associated with digital technologies follows a composite life-cycle and dialectical process. We explain that people constantly need to adjust and redefine their occupational identity (i.e., how they define who they are and what they do). We contribute to scholarship on digital technologies and identity work by illuminating how people deal in an ongoing manner with digital technologies that simultaneously enable and threaten their occupational identity.

Glossing Over: How Magazine Fact Checkers Use Conditional Self-Presentation to Straddle Glamour and Dreariness in Their Work

Authors: S. Spataro and Lisa E. Cohen Publication: Journal of Organizational Psychology, Volume 20, Issue 1, June 2020, Pages 82-103. Abstract:

Financial Returns to Firms’ Communication Actions on Firm-Initiated Social Media: Evidence from Facebook Business Pages

Authors: S. Chung, Animesh Animesh, Kunsoo Han and Alain Pinsonneault

Publication: Information Systems Research, Volume 31, Issue 1, March 2020, Pages 258-285.

Abstract:

The primary goal of this study is to investigate the financial returns to firms’ communication actions on a firm-initiated social media platform by focusing on Facebook Business pages. To this end, we conceptualize and quantify two types of firms’ communication actions on social media: posts and responses to customer messages. Furthermore, we classify a firm’s responses to customer messages based on the valence of customer messages—positive versus negative—and examine the effects of volume as well as timeliness of the two types of a firm’s responses to customer messages on firm performance. Using a sample of 63 South Korean firms across industries over a three-year period (5,566 firm-week observations), we find that the volume and timeliness of a firm’s responses to negative customer messages, which are associated with an increase in customer satisfaction, have a significant positive impact on the firm’s market performance measured by abnormal returns and Tobin’s q. Interestingly, the results suggest that a firm’s posts and its responses to positive customer messages are not significantly associated with firm performance. Furthermore, we find that a firm’s posts and its responses to negative customer messages exhibit complementarities in contributing to firm performance. Our results are robust to various alternative specifications, econometric concerns, and Facebook’s policy changes, such as EdgeRank and Promoted Post. Our findings underscore the business value of firms’ actions on social media and provide unique and important implications for theory and practice regarding the appropriate ways to use social media for building and managing customer relationships.

Software Patents and Firm Value: A Real Options Perspective on the Role of Innovation Orientation and Environmental Uncertainty

Authors: S. Chung, Animesh Animesh, Kunsoo Han and Alain Pinsonneault

Publication: Information Systems Research, Volume 30, Issue 3, September 2019, Pages 1073-1097.

Abstract:

Although software patents have been growing steadily since 1996, when the restrictions on the patentability of software were eliminated, their value and impacts on the firm’s profits remain unclear and ambiguous. Drawing on the real options theory and the literature on exploration and exploitation, we develop a novel theoretical framework to assess the value of software patents. Moreover, we examine the impact of contextual factors related to the nature of innovation underlying firms’ patent portfolios (exploitative versus explorative) and the environmental uncertainty (competitiveness and dynamism) on the value of software patents. Specifically, we examine the interaction effect of a firm’s software patent stock and its innovation orientation on firm value in markets exhibiting different levels of environmental uncertainty. Based on a large-panel data set consisting of 602 U.S. firms, our results indicate that a software patent portfolio having higher levels of explorative orientation is associated with a higher firm value (as measured by Tobin’s q) in environments exhibiting low dynamism and high competitiveness. By contrast, a software patent portfolio with higher levels of exploitative orientation is associated with a higher firm value in environments with high dynamism and low competitiveness. We discuss the implications for research and practice.

Maxime Cohen appointed Associate Editor of Management Science

Maxime Cohen, Associate Professor of Retail Management and Operations Management, was recently appointed Associate Editor of Management Science

Professor Augustin awarded best COVID research paper

Professor Patrick Augustin has been awarded the Best COVID-19 Related Paper at the International Risk Management Conference 2020.

The paper, titled In Sickness and in Debt: The COVID-19 Impact on Sovereign Credit Risk, explored the relation between economic growth shocks and sovereign default risk during the current pandemic.

The Canadian Pension Fund Model: A Quantitative Portrait

Authors:Alexander Beath, Sebastien Betermier, Chris Flynn, Quentin Spehner

Published: July 21, 2020. Available at SSRN

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Market Transition and Network-Based Job Matching in China: The Referrer Perspective

Authors: Elena Obukhova, Brian Rubineau

Publication: Industrial Labor Relations Review (ILR Review), July 28, 2020

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Desautels professors awarded IVADO research funding

Four Desautels professors have been awarded research grants by the Institute for Data Valorization (IVADO), a Montreal-based scientific and economic data science hub. The grants will fund three two-year research projects led by Desautels professors as part of IVADO’s Fundamental Research Funding Program.

Professor Khern-am-nuai awarded funding to help retailers predict surge demands

McGill University has awarded Professor Warut Khern-am-nuai with MI4 Emergency COVID-19 Research Funding to examine social media data to help retailers identify panic buying behavior during the pandemic.

Professor Masi awarded MI4 Emergency COVID-19 Research Funding

Anthony C. Masi, Professor of Industrial Relations & Organizational Behaviour at the Desautels Faculty of Management, has received MI4 Emergency COVID-19 Research Funding.

Professor Serpa awarded grant to monitor COVID-19’s impact on business

McGill University has awarded Professor Juan Serpa with MI4 Emergency COVID-19 Research Funding to monitor COVID-19’s impact on business in Canada and across the world. Titled Quebec Data Central for Impact of Covid-19 on Society and Business and for a Post-Pandemic World, the one-year project aims to support businesses, researchers and policymakers in making informed decisions in the post-COVID era.

The Role of Decision Support Systems in Attenuating Racial Biases in Healthcare Delivery

Authors: Kartik K. Ganju, Hilal Atasoy, Brad Greenwood and Jeff McCullough

Publication: Management Science, Volume 66, Issue 11, November 2020, Pages 5171-5181.

Abstract:

Although significant research has examined how technology can intensify racial and other outgroup biases, limited work has investigated the role information systems can play in abating them. Racial biases are particularly worrisome in healthcare, where underrepresented minorities suffer disparities in access to care, quality of care, and clinical outcomes. In this paper, we examine the role clinical decision support systems (CDSS) play in attenuating systematic biases among black patients, relative to white patients, in rates of amputation and revascularization stemming from diabetes mellitus. Using a panel of inpatient data and a difference-in-difference approach, results suggest that CDSS adoption significantly shrinks disparities in amputation rates across white and black patients—with no evidence that this change is simply delaying eventual amputations. Results suggest that this effect is driven by changes in treatment care protocols that match patients to appropriate specialists, rather than altering within physician decision making. These findings highlight the role information systems and digitized patient care can play in promoting unbiased decision making by structuring and standardizing care procedures.

Value of Audit for Supply Chains with Hidden Action and Information

Authors: Mohammad Nikoofal, Mehmet Gumus

Publication: European Journal of Operational Research, Forthcoming

Abstract: