Research

Research Articles

Technical Reports

  • INDIGO Hack and Learn Technical and Learning Report
    University of Oxford (Government Outcomes Lab), University of Cape Town (Bertha Centre), Ashoka University (Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy), University of Georgetown (Beeck Center of Social Impact and Innovation), Insper Institute of Education and Research (Insper Metricis), (2021)

Media

Working papers

  • Beyond the Agreement: Dilemmas in Contracting for the Transfer of Management Practices (with S. Cabral, S. Lazzarini, R. Paes-de-Barros and B. Quélin)
    Abstract: Contracting for the transfer of practices poses a dilemma to the transferring-side partners because recipients might diffuse the received practices to other organizational units beyond those targeted by the original contract. We highlight the crucial role of managers as diffusers of practices at the interorganizational boundary and propose that they can exert extra effort on nontargeted units to increase recipients’ aggregate performance. We examine this dilemma in a cross-sector arrangement where a nonprofit partner transferred management practices to recipient public schools. We gauge the ability of boundary managers to diffuse practices and find that it particularly enhances the performance of the nontargeted units, leading to a severe underestimation of the transferring-side contribution. We discuss how our theory and findings advance the study of interfirm contracting.

  • Bargaining for Future Rents: Enablers and Constraints for a Long-term Orientation in Buyer-Seller Negotiations (with S. Cabral, S. Lazzarini, A. Duarte)
    Abstract: We analyze how companies deal with short-term versus long-term appropriation incentives by proposing that sellers' bargaining experience leads to a lower propensity to appropriate gains in spot negotiations and fosters the appropriation of long-term gains via recurring interactions with buyers. We benefit from detailed, proprietary data from a franchisor of dental clinics. We show that sellers with greater bargaining experience more often promote price discounts in short-term negotiations especially when they transact with income constrained buyers. Such discounts, in turn, increase the flow of revenues that buyers can reap in future negotiations as long as they face fewer sellers competing for similar clients. Our study thus demonstrates the importance of bargaining experience and unveils a relational mechanism through which companies can manage intertemporal appropriation dilemmas.

  • Leveraging Outcomes-based Contracts: The Role of Socially-oriented Investors (solo-authored, soon at IRSPM, 2022, prior version presented at Social Outcomes Conference, 2021)
    Abstract:     This paper advances the theoretical and empirical literatures investigating how to leverage OBCs in public contracting, highlighting challenges and boundary conditions for scaling OBCs. By assessing a dataset comprising ongoing and still unlaunched OBCs worldwide, I observe that such OBCs could, beyond widening the audiences of targeted vulnerable populations, also widen the scale of investments depending on the orientation of investors. But scaling up contracts is not trivial, and socially-oriented investors are certainly crucial actors in doing so. I then bridge the OBC literature with studies analyzing the choices and tradeoffs investors and other stakeholders face when dealing with social outcomes. My findings add to the literature suggesting OBCs as a promising but also incipient approach in public contracting Finally, I suggest there are short- and long-term pathways to be explored. In the shorter term, policymakers could try to engage the socially-oriented investors in conventional public-private partnerships to also rely on OBCs, which are currently restricted to small-scale pilot projects. As uncertainty diminishes, in the longer term, future work could delve into how to better use financial-social aligning mechanisms to also engage financially-oriented investors. Perhaps contrary to initial beliefs, despite the inherent dual objectives of OBCs considering social outcomes, dual-purpose investors with limited capital would be the last to scale their investments.

Work in progress

  • Does live-streaming the legislative arenas matter? Enabling evidence-based debates in polarised democracies (w/ A. Aquino and D. Lima, soon at IRSPM 2022)
    Abstract: Developed democracies face a crisis of confidence in traditional models of democratic governance. Political polarisation deriving from populism or state-sponsored ideologies has been accompanied by decreasing voter turnout and timid levels of civic engagement. Some streams of the literature suggest the introduction of technology enhance accountability and the interaction between civil society and its representatives within democracies. Politicians facing sanitary emergencies are usually held accountable to consider evidence-based public policies rather than decide based on weak heuristics to survive information overload. We investigate whether live-streaming and recording parliamentary sessions rebalance how local councillors anchor their deliberation on qualified evidence or partisan ideology. We ran a between-subjects survey experiment with local legislators spread nationwide in Brazil. The online surveys were administered when Brazil was facing the peak of its first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey questionnaire manipulated technology usage in parliamentary sessions by randomly presenting legislators to three vignettes. In the control group, participants were asked to consider debates at the council with only in-person attendees. Other participants were framed around technology usage either in terms of ‘space’ (live-streaming political debates, therefore opening the debate to others than only in-person attendees) and ‘time’ (same as live-streaming, but additionally recording these debates to be further available). Preliminary findings suggest live-streaming and recording drive legislators to evidence-based sources when informing themselves. Post-hoc analyses show that party affiliation and the legislator position in such a polarised setting influenced information usage. We discuss implications for technology implementation in the political deliberative process.

  • Willingness to Include: Enabling Pro-Social Strategies in For-Profit Settings (w/ A. Caluz and T. Teodorovicz, presented at Strategic Management Society Annual Meeting 2021)
    Abstract: There are ongoing discussions on what could drive for-profit firms to target vulnerable and constrained audiences that are often marginalized. Prior studies that discuss mechanisms through which the private sector could promote social inclusion usually involve lawmaking or bringing together governments and other third-sector organizations as partners. In this paper, we take a step back to investigate the willingness to include even when considering the usual profit-maximization lens. We argue that unconstrained audiences could benefit from more inclusive approaches by capturing the externalities of interacting with a different (lower) social background. A socially desirable cascade effect is the unconstrained promoting cross-subsidization once they perceive these benefits, which would reconcile financial and social goals even in a for-profit segment. Drawing from a quasi-experimental setting in the private education sector, our findings suggest that for-profits can indeed serve as brokers for connecting constrained and unconstrained stakeholders that create and capture value together via social inclusion that is further subsidized by the unconstrained. We contribute to the strategy literature by spotlighting internal appropriation mechanisms that can generate value for constrained and unconstrained audiences.


Awards and Recognitions

  • Distinguished Paper Award AoM (2022, The Strategic Management Division, in Organization Structure, Networks and Relational Strategies, for Beyond the Agreement: Dilemmas in Contracting for the Transfer of Management Practices).

  • Top Reviewer AoM PNP (2022, Awarded to 11 reviewers for the Academy of Management 2022 Public and Nonprofit Division who received outstanding feedback on the usefulness and tone of their reviews).

  • AoM Best Papers (2020, 2022)

  • Insper PhD Scholarship (2016-2021)