My main research interests include social evaluation processes (responses to feedback, reputation, and status dynamics) with a particular focus on rankings and online ratings. I’m especially interested in creative and cultural industries, and in how digitization directly or indirectly influences firms’ strategic choices.
Let Us Not Speak of Them, but Look and Pass? Organizational Responses to Online Reviews
[Favaron S.D., Di Stefano G.] – Published in Organization Science (2025)
https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/orsc.2020.14091
Abstract
In a world where five stars have become the standard for evaluating many transactions, and consumers turn to the crowd for guidance when making a wide variety of choices, organizations cannot dismiss online reviews as inconsequential. And while we know a lot about how organizations respond to reviews online, there has been a lack of systematic evidence showing how organizations behave in response to online feedback once their screens are turned off. This paper leverages a novel combination of insights from a lab-in-the-field experiment, an archival study, and two rounds of qualitative interviews in the French restaurant industry to examine online and offline responses to reviewer feedback. We identify characteristics of the review, the restaurant, and the respondent that influenced when restaurants in our sample were more likely to align their actions online and offline, and when they were more likely to decouple them—i.e., posting an online response promising to take corrective action while having no intention to change how the restaurant operates “in real life”. We conclude by speculating on potential mechanisms behind our respondents’ reactions, and discussing our contribution to literature on producer reactivity and the symbolic management of change.
Write access provisioning and organizational ownership in open source software projects: Exploring the impact on project novelty and survival
[Medappa P.K, Srivastava. S.C, Favaron S.D.] – Published in Research Policy (2025)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733325001131
Abstract
Non-hierarchical organizational structures have gained popularity as a means to leverage the crowd's innovative potential. However, balancing the generation of new ideas with the long-term sustainability of innovation efforts remains a significant challenge, especially in the context of open-source software (OSS) projects. In the absence of formal authority and contracts, OSS projects rely on governance systems wherein the rights to maintain the project's source code are restricted to a small group of contributors. We argue that restricting write access to the source code for a core group is essential for effectively managing innovation in OSS projects. Specifically, we propose that the proportion of contributors with write access to the source code influences two key outcomes: project novelty and survival. Additionally, given the widespread adoption of OSS development practices by organizations, we examine how organizational ownership influences the relationship between write access provisioning and project outcomes. Analyzing a matched sample of 5762 OSS projects hosted on GitHub, we find that a higher proportion of contributors with write access enhances the project's novelty but reduces the project's survival. This relationship is further influenced by whether or not the project is organization-owned. We attribute these findings to the distinct roles played by contributors: those with write access to the project drive innovation by selecting and integrating new ideas, while those without write access to the project are crucial for ensuring the project's reliability and long-term survival.
Michelin is coming to town: Organizational responses to status shocks.
[Favaron S.D., Di Stefano G., Durand R.] – Published in Management Science (2022)
https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/mnsc.2021.4210
Abstract
What happens in the aftermath of the introduction of a new status ranking? In this study, we exploit the unique empirical opportunity generated by the release of the first edition of the Michelin Guide for Washington D.C. in the fall of 2016. We build on prior work on rankings as insecurity-inducing devices by suggesting that newly awarded high-status actors modify their self-presentation attributes to fit with what they believe audiences expect from the elite. Our results show that, depending on their standing prior to Michelin’s entry, restaurants acted upon different attributes of their self-presentation. Restaurants with high prior standing emphasized attributes that channeled authenticity and exclusivity, which may imply their Michelin designation triggered operational changes. Actors with low prior standing, on the other hand, acted on descriptive attributes that did not necessarily imply operational changes and could be easily manipulated to signal their belonging among the elite. We contribute to research on status and conformity by disentangling the sources and types of conformity behaviors that newly awarded high-status actors deploy.
Project on the interaction between ratings by experts and amateurs in the restaurant industry.
[with Di Stefano G. and Depalma C.] - Under review
Celebrity, Transgression, and Performance Rebound: Evidence from Professional Basketball
[with Mazzelli A.]
Reputation dynamics in the digital age: addressing online threats to organizational reputation.
[with Medappa P.K.] - Best Proposal for Creativity in Research - Competitive Strategy - SMS Toronto 2021
Project on Fit and Portability of Employee Performance in the context of European football.
[with Thomas A.]
Does slack always affect resilience? A study of quasi-medium-sized Italian firms
[Alessandra Tognazzo, Paolo Gubitta, Favaron S.D.] - Entrepreneurship & Regional Development 28 (9-10), 768-790.
Lepri che vincono la crisi: Storie di aziende (quasi medie) vincenti nei mercati globali
[Paolo Gubitta, Alessandra Tognazzo, Favaron S.D.] - Marsilio Editori.