DIME-Workshop : Incentives and Organization for Knowledge Creation

Report on DIME-Workshop : Incentives and Organization for Knowledge Creation

Pisa, 13-14 November 2009

Location: Pisa / Italy, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Dates: 13 and 14 November 2009
Organisers: Luigi Marengo (Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna) and Pierre Garrouste (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne)

The increasing importance of knowledge generation in organizations has been subject to intense scrutiny. In the face of the different dimensions that knowledge creation and diffusion entail, for instance its collective character, social communities are now understood as the suitable units for analysing knowledge-related social processes. The importance of such analysis is highlighted by the emergence of new forms of coordination for knowledge production and distribution that overcome the traditional dichotomy between hierarchies and markets, such as in peer-to-peer production, distribution networks, and more generally social communities.

However, the dynamics of social communities, inside and outside the traditional domain of the firm, has thus far been analysed, almost exclusively, from the viewpoint of incentives. It is not to say that the incentive dimension of the knowledge based-organizations is irrelevant, but indeed the relationships between incentives, motivations and learning within organizations, are, indeed, far from being fully understood. Even if economists have recently reconsidered, especially because of the challenge offered by experimental evidence, the role of incentives and motivations and their interactions, their role in knowledge generation and diffusion is still largely overlooked by the literature. In particular, models and theories, still under the influence of agency theory, lack the collective and organizational dimension that characterizes knowledge generation and diffusion in firms.

The aim of this workshop was to offer a contribution to fostering theoretical, empirical and experimental research in this direction.

Examples of questions addressed in the workshop:

-  What is the role of both hierarchy and worker autonomy and participation in the success of innovative organisations? Do they vary across innovation regimes?

-  How do different motivations and identities interact with organisational forms?

-  What does empirical evidence teach us about new organisational forms?

-  How to clarify (model) the complex relationships between incentives and motivations?

-  How is it possible to introduce the organizational dimension of learning in economics?

Program and list of participants follow. All papers can be downloaded from the workshop’s web site: https://mail.sssup.it/~l.marengo/WP11/WP11Program.htm

Incentives and Organization for Knowledge Creation

November 13-14, 2009

Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa

Workshop Programme

Friday 13th November

Venue: Scuola Superiore S. Anna, Piazza Martiri della Libertà 33, Pisa, Room 6

9:15 Welcome and practicalities.

9:30-11:00 Chair Pierre Garrouste

Edward Deci (Rochester University) “A self-Determination Theory View of Rewards and Motivation”

Ulrich Witt (Max Planck Institute, Jena) “Entrepreneurship and Organizational Change in Growing Firms”

11:00 – 11:30 Coffee break

11:30-13:00 Chair Alessandro Nuvolari

Liam Brunt (Bergen Business School) “Inducement prizes and Innovation”

Debrah Meloso (Bocconi University, Milano) "Promoting Intellectual Discovery: Patents vs Markets"

13:00-14:30 Buffet Lunch

14:30- 16:00 Chair Margrit Osterloh

Massimo Egidi (Luiss, Rome) TBA

Pierre Garrouste and Agnes Festré (Nice and Paris I) “Somebody is watching you”

16:00-16:30 Coffee break

16:30-18:00 Chair Agnes Festré

Benoît Chalvignac (Strasbourg) “Voluntary participation and cooperation in a collective-good game”

Luigi Marengo (Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa) “How to get what you want when you do not know what you want”

20:00 Dinner

Saturday 14th November

9:30-11:00 Chair Luigi Marengo

Bruno Frey and Margrit Osterloh (University of Zurich) "Are There Alternatives to Academic Ranking?"

Marco Piovesan (Copenhagen University) "Social Preferences and Strategic Uncertainty: an Experiment on Markets and Contracts"

11:00 – 11:30 Coffee break

11:30-13:00 Chair Ulrich Witt

Alessandro Nuvolari (Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa) "The anatomy of collective invention processes"

Francesca Sgobbi (University of Brescia) “Do high performance work practices induce learning?”

13:00-14:30 Buffet Lunch and Farewell

LIST of PARTICIPANTS

Liam Brunt

Department of Economics

Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen

Benoît Chalvignac

BETA

Universitè de Strasbourg

Edward Deci

Department of Clinical & Social Psychology

Rochester University

Giovanni Dosi

LEM - Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna

Pisa

Massimo Egidi

Università Luiss Guido Carli

Roma

Agnès Festré

GREDEG

Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis

Bruno Frey

Institute for Empirical Research in Economics

University of Zurich

Pierre Garrouste

GREDEG

Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis

Luigi Marengo

LEM - Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna

Pisa

Debrah Meloso

Università Bocconi

Milano

Alessandro Nuvolari

LEM - Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna

Pisa

Margrit Osterloh

Institute for Organization and Administrative Science

University of Zurich

Marco Piovesan

Department of Economics

Copenhagen University

Francesca Sgobbi

Università di Brescia

Ulrich Witt

Max Planck Institute of Economics

Jena