Share
Latest episode
FTX Scandal Reflects Complex Dance between Off-Chain Practices and Blockchain Accounting
33:39The FTX cryptocurrency scandal illuminates the critical caveats to the world of blockchains. Since December 2022 and the arrest of FTX founder Sam Bankman Fried, this affair has rocked the world of cryptocurrencies and the on-chain features that underpins its entire existence. It also reveals the impact of off-chain factors involved in blockchain operations. Recent research by professors Dane Pflueger (HEC Paris), Martin Kornberger (Vienna University) and Jan Mouritsen (Copenhagen Business School) sheds light on the FTX and other scandals that are unfolding. Their December 2022 publication in the European Accounting Review, explores the issues of governance, organizing, and trust that buttress blockchain accounting. Speaking from the HEC campus near Paris, Pflueger challenges the notion some have that blockchain technology does not need intermediaries like accountants to function.Read the summary on Knowledge@HEC here.
More episodes
View all episodes
Creative Destruction Lab Tackles AI, Geopolitics and Ethics in Historic Toronto Session
48:08Around 1,200 participants congregated in Toronto for the first in-person CDL Super Session in four years. The two-day event featured intense exchanges between startups from the 24 CDL streams, mentors, researchers and academics. There were equally hard-hitting exchanges on AI, geopolitical shifts in innovation and the advancement of humanlike intelligence. HEC Paris sent a strong delegation to Canada to exchange on its growing involvement in this objective-based program for massively scalable, seed-stage companies. A Breakthroughs special brings you an extended program highlighting the key exchanges during this third in-person Super Session.
Decisions Under Uncertainty: Lessons for Future Black Swans
30:30On the eve of the 11th annual D-Tea (promoting Dialogues between Theory, Experimental findings and Applications of decision-making, hence the acronym), we talk to its co-organizer Professor Itzhak Gilboa. Last year, Itzhak was ranked by Stanford University in the world’s top six theoretical economists. His main interest is in decision under uncertainty and decision models whereby uncertainty can’t be quantified. That is called non-Bayesian decision models – as opposed to the Bayesian approach which assigns probabilities based on experience or best guesses. Itzhak questions these axioms, or self-evident truths. He believes his research can help answer unforeseen crises, called black swans, like the war in Ukraine, health pandemics or the climate crisis.
How the Global Shipping Industry Evades Corporate Responsibilities in the 2.0 Age
40:43HEC Associate Professor Guillaume Vuillemey explores how the maritime shipping industry has evolved in the past 40 years to systematically evade its corporate responsibilities. In his groundbreaking research Vuillemey reveals how this industry – which handles over 80% of global trade flows – uses flags of convenience and limited liability to flout international and moral law. This has repercussions on the environment and basic human rights. In a long interview, Vuillemey outlines his approach of this industry and its links to what some are calling the “dark side of globalization”. The exchange is followed by an on-the-ground report from ChangeNOW 2023 Summit on its analysis to the shipping sector.Read the summary on Knowledge@HEC.
HEC PhD Graduate Revolutionizes Health Practices in D.R.C.
41:57Doctor Anicet Fangwa's work on health centers and stillbirths in the Democratic Republic of Congo could save millions of lives by better managing health practices throughout Africa. The PhD graduate from HEC Paris describes the managerial tools he's been using to transform treatment in health centers in remote parts of the DRC.
#MeToo and the American Boardroom
28:15It’s been over five years since #MeToo began to draw global attention to the sexual abuse and harassment women have been subjected to in the workplace. But just what impact has this protest movement had on US companies and their boards of directors? HEC Paris Assistant Professor Crystal Shi examined the behavior of over 2,000 American firms to gauge the evolution in policy and attitude of investors and board members in their respective companies. Shi and two fellow academics at New York’s Stern School of Business identified 37 MeToo events in the year after the Harvey Weinstein scandal. They then looked for any abnormal market return based on the boardrooms’ gender structure and culture. Finally, the researchers studied the costs of the companies’ gender-inclusive or -exclusive cultures.Read the summary on Knowledge@HEC.
Pourquoi l’apprentissage du savoir-être à l’école peut transformer la vie
32:49Et si, en enseignant l’empathie et la coopération à de jeunes garçons, l’école pouvait transformer des vies ? Dans une recherche cosignée par Yann Algan, professeur d'économie et doyen associé de l'ensemble des programmes pré-expérience à HEC Paris, les résultats sont sans appel. Ce spécialiste du bien-être au sein des organisations nous livre le bilan d’une recherche unique qu’il a menée pendant 33 ans auprès d’enfants à risque de décrochage venant de quartiers pauvres de Montréal.Retrouvez le résumé de l'étude, en anglais sur Knowledge@HEC.