Much mainstream literature on organizational culture has a “functional” flavor, i.e., useful cultural practices are selected by an organization. However, it has been observed that interaction dynamics among employees can diffuse and stabilize a “bad equilibrium” of (sometimes grossly) underperforming culture and practices. How can this happen? We offer a dynamic model where people adopt practices from others (and modify them in the process) based on ambiguous information about the practice’s true productive value and under social competition with other employees. We show how this can lead to systematic dysfunctional overuse of a practice, and we show under which circumstances this can happen.
About the Speaker
Christoph H. Loch is Professor of Operations and Technology Management at IESE Business School in Barcelona. Until 2024, he was Professor at Cambridge Judge Business School (CJBS), where he served as the Director (Dean) of the school from 2011-2021. A university business school combines academic activities (published research and degree teaching) with commercial activities in competitive markets (programmes and executive education). Under his leadership since 2011, CJBS grew in revenues from £24m in 2011-12 to £60m in 2019-20, breaking even every year while continuing to make a financial contribution to the University of Cambridge. On the teaching side, CJBS’ ranked programmes (MBA, EMBA, Master of Finance, and Executive Education) were all ranked in the FT Global top 20 in 2020 (from only one of them ranked in 2011). On the research side, the 2021 UK government’s official university research benchmarking exercise (“REF”), conducted every seven years, ranked CJBS as the best research school of all UK business schools (after a second place in 2014).
As an academic, Professor Loch has continued to teach and conduct research. His experience lies in the management of innovation in organizations, project management, and the emotional side of motivation of professional personnel. He was identified as one of the top ten Innovation researchers worldwide in the Journal of Product Innovation Management in 2012, and he was identified as one of the top ten researchers worldwide in Operations Management in the journal Decision Sciences in 2020. Since January 2024, he serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Management Science.
You are also welcome to participate via Zoom if you are unable to join us in person.