Knowledge@HEC

This summer’s eruption of violence in the UK has renewed searching questions on the role social media plays in our society. It has also accelerated calls for new or revamped regulation of the country’s social media platforms, encapsuled in the UK’s Online Safety Act. But online violence does not confine itself to politicized and stigmatized communities. For the past 12 years, HEC Professor Kristine de Valck has explored the presence of direct, cultural and structural violence in an online community that few researchers would imagine: the British electronic dance music community. Kristine shares her decade-long research on such leisure-oriented communities, also observed on Reddit, Twitch and Discord platforms, and suggests ways to mitigate such brutalization of online consumers.

Notre série du podcast Breakthroughs fête ce mois-ci les événements sportifs de l’été avec un programme hors-série dédié au lancement d’un nouvel électif sport et commerce pour les étudiants. Intitulé « Sport & Business », ce programme de six mois comprend un travail théorique, puis de terrain en partenariat avec le club de football professionnel Racing Club de Lens (présidé par Joseph Oughourlian, un alumnus d’HEC). Le professeur Luc Arrondel dirige les contenus académiques de l’électif. Ce chercheur partage avec nous son approche pédagogique centrés sur l’économie du foot. Puis, dans la deuxième partie du podcast, nous suivons le premier rassemblement de l’Economie du Sport dans lequel HEC Paris, Bpifrance et EY ont uni les acteurs clés de l’écosystème sportif. Etaient présents pour HEC, des dirigeants, des étudiants et des alumni pour des séances dédiées à la recherche, à l’enseignement et à l’action de l’école de commerce dans ce secteur florissant.

2024 marks 20 years since the birth of social media. Since then, it has become a major communication force in the lives of teenagers’ lives - a 2024 Pew survey claims that 93% of American youth use it, for example. Unsurprisingly, research on its impact has followed suit. But just how reliable are the conclusions in this new field of studies? In April 2024 HEC professors Tina Lowrey and L.J. Shrum co-signed a research paper with their former doctoral student Elena Fumagalli (H18), showing conflicting findings on the negative and positive effects of social media on youth. They warn against major policies and lawsuits founded on inconclusive studies and contradictory scientific research. Professors Lowrey and Shrum share with Breakthroughs their empirical study to try to make sense of a subject matter inflaming public debate.

Ever since he published “Strategic Management”, Edward Freeman has been at the forefront of a theory that stakeholders are interconnected. For his collective body of work, the economist from Darden School, Virginia, received an Honorary Doctorate from HEC Paris, adding his name to the 48 illustrious scholars on the HEC Honoris Causa list. The March 4 ceremony was followed by several thousand spectators, both live and on line. Freeman’s visit to the Jouy-en-Josas campus was the occasion to discuss his stakeholder vision with a prism of the 21st century. This is an exceptional Breakthroughs podcast, recorded for Knowledge@HEC. Find the written highlights on Knowledge@HEC.

Unlike the steam engine or the birth of the Internet, AI and LLMs (such as ChatGPT) do not need expensive hardware for access. Hence, a universalization which Carlos Serrano underlines in this wide-ranging podcast. He’s Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Economics in the Department of Economics and Decision Sciences at HEC Paris. With his colleague Professor Thomas Åstebro, he organized a groundbreaking AI & Entrepreneurship Workshop at HEC, inviting top researchers and business experts from different disciplines and backgrounds to discuss how to bridge the gap between research and business. Key points included the transformation of risk management for machines and how, in the words of Serrano, industry practitioners are generally thinking ahead of academics. That, and much more in this frank and often personal podcast exchange. Find the written highlights on Knowledge@HEC here.

HEC Professors Laurence Lehmann Ortega and Hélène Musikas have been working together for over 15 years on a business framework they call Odyssey 3.14. This strategy helps guide companies to better invest in business models that promote innovation and sustainability. The result is a book which entered its third edition in September, entitled “(Re)invent Your Business Model with Odyssey 3.14”. The two academics describe these three pillars and 14 directions which have evolved significantly in the past decades.

How can the E.U. respond to the growing clamor for more citizen participation in its institutions? In a wide-ranging podcast, the Jean Monnet Professor in EU Law, Alberto Alemanno, proposes a permanent European Citizens Assembly to bring E.U. voters and their representatives closer together. The HEC professor also explores how lobbies can become a force for promoting social change. He also points out structural problems within the E.U. which are stymying the continent’s youth. Finally, Alemanno’s research with fellow academic Elie Sung pinpoints the oft-neglected impact of lobbies on judicial courts by interest groups– which are having devastating effects on societal issues like women’s and LBGTQI+ rights. 

The 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.

Around 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.