Still, Mr. Mehta does not think he has discovered any secrets. “This business remains so fascinating because it is so dogged with uncertainty,” he said. “I still find it as confusing as when I started.” He smiled and added, “Merrily, we beat our heads against the wall.”
Sonny Mehta of Knopf on uncertainty in the publishing business
NEWLY PUBLISHED PAPERS
More Versus Better: Artificial Intelligence, Incentives, and the Emerging Crisis in Peer Review (with Claudine Gartenberg, Alex Murray, and Lamar Pierce) Organization Science Articles in Advance [pdf]
Our Substack posts on the article: More versus Better, Part I; Part II, and Part III
Covered in Forbes, Nature, The Economic Times of India, Rediff, Inside Higher Ed, Cal Newport Blog, Cal Newport Podcast, Nature, Phys.org, Derek Thompson Substack (top Megatrends of 2026).
INNOVATION + EXPERIMENTATION
The first stream of my research focuses on how experimentation drives learning and innovation. In addition to my expertise in designing strategic experiments, I study how firms implement experimentation strategies and the market-level implications of experimentation.
If You Had One Shot: Scale and Herding in Innovation Experiments
(with A. Arora and W. Miles) Working paper. (National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 33682). Revise & Resubmit at Management Science.
Experimentation and Startup Performance: Evidence from A/B Testing
(with Rembrand Koning and Aaron Chatterji), Management Science 68(9):6434-6453 [pdf] (Substack post creativity, critique and judgment here)
Organizational Decision-Making and the Returns to Experimentation
(with Todd Hall), Journal of Organization Design (Jan 2023) [pdf]
Winner of the 2025 Organization Design Community Best Paper Award.
It Didn’t Work: Learning from Failed Field Experiments
(with Chiara Spina et al.), Under Review
Taste Before Production: The Role of Judgment in Entrepreneurial Idea Generation (Substack post creativity, critique, and judgment here)
(with Aaron Chatterji, Rick Larrick, and Roger Masclans), Working Paper (Oct 2023)
Field Experiments in Entrepreneurship and Innovation (with Chiara Spina) in De Gruyter Handbook of Sociology of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Olav Sorenson and Patricia H. Thornton (eds.), 2024
Which Businesses Enroll in Innovation Training? Evidence from a Field Experiment (with Pascal Crama, Reddi Kotha, Vish Krishnan, Cintia Kulzer Sacilotto, and Chon-Phung Lim), Revise and Resubmit at Strategic Management Journal (January 2022)
INNOVATION + NETWORKS AND ORGANIZATION DESIGN
The second stream of my research focuses on network and organization design. I study how you put people together to maximize innovation and learning. My studies include large-scale experiments on networks and learning in startup ecosystems, scientific collaborations and their long-term value, and networks and new product development.
When Does Advice Impact Startup Performance?
(with Aaron Chatterji, Solene Delecourt, and Rembrand Koning), Strategic Management Journal 40 (3), 331-356 [pdf]
Helpful Behavior and the Durability of Collaborative Ties
(with Sampsa Samila and Alexander Oettl), Organization Science 33(5):1816-1836. [pdf] (Check out my post on when relationships become transactions)
Designing Social Networks: Joint Tasks and the Formation and Endurance of Network Ties
(with Rembrand Koning), Journal of Organizational Design 9 (1), 1-19 [pdf]
Prior Social Ties and the Limits of Peer Effects on Startup Team Performance
(with Rembrand Koning), Strategic Management Journal 40 (9), 1394-1416 [pdf]
Conversations and Idea Generation: Evidence from a Field Experiment
(with Rembrand Koning), Research Policy 48(9), 103811 [pdf] (Substack post creativity, critique, and judgment here)
Peers and Network Growth: Evidence from a Natural Experiment
(with Surendrakumar Bagde), Management Science 61 (10), 2536-2547 [pdf]
The Mechanics of Social Capital and Academic Performance in an Indian College
(with Surendrakumar Bagde), American Sociological Review 78(6), 1009-1032 [pdf]
Group-Based Trajectories of Network Formation and Dynamics Social Networks 34(4), 506-514.
Social Networks and Careers
in Social Networks at Work, D.J. Brass and S.P. Borgatti (eds.) SIOP Frontiers Book Series, 2020.
Specialization and Career Dynamics: Evidence from the Indian Administrative Service (with John-Paul Ferguson), Administrative Science Quarterly 58 (2), 233-256 [pdf]
The Aging Firm (with Ines Black, Yoko Shibuya, Maria Zhu), Working Paper (Articles in Advance in Research in Organizational Behavior).
INNOVATION + TECHNOLOGY AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
My third stream of research focuses on how technology shapes firms’ innovation. My recent work on this topic focuses on the “More” versus “Better” trade-off that arises when AI’s productive capabilities collide with incentive systems, as well as on how AI can be used to broaden the search for new ideas. I have written several papers on how the interaction of technology and incentives drives the behavior of individuals and firms: e.g., the emergence of LinkedIn (a massive reduction in information asymmetry) drove some firms to shift their hiring practices; how technology that increased information about school performace drove geographic sorting, and how the availablilty of cheap news distribution via social media drove a both the entry of opinion-first players in online news, and led incuments to increase their own opinionated content.
More Versus Better: Artificial Intelligence, Incentives, and the Emerging Crisis in Peer Review (with Claudine Gartenberg, Alex Murray, and Lamar Pierce)
Organizing Artificial Expertise (with David Hsu, Prasanna Tambe), (Coming soon)
When Do Intermediaries Slow Scientific Diffusion? Evidence from Google Search (with Wesley Cohen and Roger Masclans)
Measuring the Commercial Potential of Science [download data]
(with Wesley Cohen and Roger Masclans), Articles in Advance Strategic Management Journal (March 2024); National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 32262 (Substack post on defining deep tech + Duke deeptech research)
Opinion is Cheaper than Fact: Business Strategies in Political News (with Aaron Chatterji, Dror Shvadron, and William Miles), Working paper (Revise and Resubmit at Management Science).
Hunting for Talent: Firm-driven Labor Market Search in America
(with Ines Black and Rembrand Koning), Forthcoming, Strategic Management Journal (May 2022) [pdf] (Check out my substack on labor markets here)
Who Captures the Value from Organizational Ratings?: Evidence from Public Schools (with Anuj Kumar), Forthcoming, Strategy Science [pdf]
Formerly titled “Digitization and Divergence: Online School Ratings and Segregation in America”
Covered in: Vox; Mother Jones; EducationWeek; New York Times; The 74 Million; Thomas Fordham Institute; THE Journal; Poverty and Race Research Action Council; Urban Institute; PBS
The Lives and Deaths of Jobs: Technical Interdependence and Survival in a Job Structure (with John-Paul Ferguson and Rembrand Koning), Organization Science 26(6), 1665-1681 [pdf]
From Model Design to Organizational Design: Complexity Redistribution and Trade-Offs in Generative AI (with Alexander Oettl and Sampsa Samila), Available on SSRN and arXiv.
Data exchanges among firms. (with Morad Elsaify) Digital Business 1.2 (2021): 100010.
Analyzing the Effect of Data Quality on the Accuracy of Clinical Decision Support Systems: A Computer Simulation Approach
(with Rema Padman) AMIA Annu Symp Proc.. 2006: 324–328.
Automatic Detection of Omissions in Medication Lists
(with George T. Duncan, Daniel B. Neill, and Rema Padman),Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 18 (4), 449-458 [pdf]
Towards a collaborative filtering approach to medication reconciliation
(with George T. Duncan, Daniel B. Neill, and Rema Padman) AMIA Annu Symp Proc.. 2008: 288–292.
Gentrification and Racial Distrust in Communities: Evidence from 911 Calls (with Uttara Ananthakrishnan and Anuj Kumar), Forthcoming, Management Science [pdf]
Sharique Hasan 