Recent, Ongoing, and Future Research Projects

My research examines the relationship between operations management and cultures: how incentives, processes, and targets affect the formation of cultures, and how do these cultures, in turn, shape learning and performance. My work is methodologically diverse, with three working papers applying advanced econometric methods and two theoretical papers analyzing game theoretic models. This page describes my recent and ongoing research projects in this domain, with links to published or working papers as appropriate.

Citations: 94

H-Index: 4

Hold Me Accountable: Anonymity and Prosocial Behavior

Published at M&SOM (May 2025)

With Claire Senot (Tulane University). This paper focuses on the cultural lever of accountability and how it is influences by the design operational processes and information systems, in ways that are often overlooked. This paper uses a quasi-experiment method to investigate such an event where a service provider removed the names of participants from test kits in a viral testing program. The effect was a surprising 21% reduction in participation, negative moderated by the size of the groups participants were randomly assigned to. We confirm the robustness of this result using difference-in-differences, regression discontinuity, and augmented local linear models. We examine further moderating effects and offer guidance to service providers can use accountability as a cultural dimension to encourage prosocial behavior, both in volunteering settings and businesses. View this paper on SSRN.

Presented at: POMS 2023, INFORMS 2023, University of Toronto, Wharton Empirical Workshop 2024, POMS 2024.

Media Attention:

Minority Figures: Gender Tokenism and Prosocial Behavior

R&R at Management Science (June 2025)

With Claire Senot (Tulane University). This paper focuses on the cultural lever of diversity and how it moderates individual decision-making in group contexts. Are more diverse cultures beneficial compared to homogenous ones? The conventional wisdom argues that gender diversity is a good thing — it has been shown to increase sales performance, reduce risk, and enhance creativity - but what about prosocial behavior? In this paper, we take advantage of a unique setting to study the effect of including gender tokens compared to single gender teams. We find that the prosocial behavior of tokens is higher than peers, but there is no spillover to the rest of the team. To identify whether gender diversity can ever lead to a cultural change that induces a positive spillover on prosocial behavior, we develop an advanced identification strategy and find that a gender balance of 60/40 or greater is needed for a positive cultural shift, associated with prosocial behavior. We offer critical insights for the design of diversity schemes and affirmative action programs that encourage the positive benefits of gender diverse cultures. View this paper in SSRN.

Presented at: POMS 2025

Cultures for Innovation

Working paper, under preparation for submission for Management Science Q2 2025

With Jeremy Hutchison-Krupat (University of Cambridge). All successful organizations chase paradigm shifting innovations, but how can they create a culture that maximizes their chances of uncovering these innovations when it is impossible to articulate the path to success specifically? These so-called unknown-unknown innovations require a culture that can tolerate failure, but as we show in this paper, determining the optimal innovation culture is a subtle and complex decisions. What extent should R&D activities be monitored? How can we ensure that we tolerate failure but not incompetence? Can monitoring something you don’t want actually help you get something you do want? Our ground-breaking modelling address all of these questions and more. We provide managers with important quantitative insights on the cultural aspects of innovation, a topic that can often seem mysterious. Contact me for a pre-print.

Presented at: INFORMS 2024, POMS 2025, INFORMS 2025 (Forthcoming)

Cultures of Exploration: How Ambitious Goals for Individuals Pay Off

Working paper, under preparation for submission to Management Science Q4 2025

With Setareh Farahjollahzadeh (McGill University, Desautels Faculty of Management). As highlighted in ‘Cultures for Innovation’, it is challenging for organizations to establish a culture where investing discretionary effort in exploration for novel solution concepts is the norm. In this paper, I extend my investigation of innovation culture to a large scale behavioral experiment into the phenomenon of ‘learned industriousness’. Put simply, psychology theory predicts that individuals exposed to harder goals in the past will exert more discretionary effort in the future, even when rewards are removed. In other words, if learned industriousness occurs in the context of innovation, it offers a new cultural level to increase exploration. To test the prediction this theory makes about learning, motivation, throughput, and retention, I use a unique online setting to conduct an experiment that generated over 64,000,000 participant-task interactions. wE observe 500,000 participants completing tasks of varying complexities over 4 years. Participants have discretion to exceed minimum quality standard (‘exploration’) but only earn rewards for reaching this minimum effort target. I leverage the random assignment of targets in OLS and IV models, confirming that learned industriousness in a fundamental driver of exploration in opened-ended tasks. Our results reveal both the benefits and pitfalls of creating innovation cultures with ambitious goals. Contact me for a pre-print.

Presented at: INFORMS 2025 (forthcoming)

Sustainability: Food Waste

McGill’s Operations Management group specializes in retail. As part of my collaboration with this group, my colleague Javad Nasiry and I have secured $86,000 of funding to support our research into the link between technology innovations and food waste. Our paper on this topic examines how contractual mechanisms may be used to motivate the adoption of waste reducing traceability systems.

No Spoilers: Grocery supply chain traceability and food waste

Under Revision (May 2025)

With Javad Nasiry (McGill University). This paper examines the challenges posed to equity by food waste, where millions of tonnes of potential edible food is wasted while people go hungry. Specifically, we investigate the role of supply chain traceability systems (such as those with Blockchain as an underlying technology) in reducing perishable food waste from over-ordering and processing errors. We determine the conditions under which economic and social incentives align to maximize the value of traceability and propose policy changes to encourage this behavior. View this paper on SSRN.

Presented at: INFORMS 2024, POMS 2025, McGill University.