OSWC 2024: Navigating risk and uncertainty in organisational science
From 29 February to 2 March, the Organization Science Winter Conference (OSWC 2024) celebrated its 25th anniversary, hosted at ETH Zurich.
For the first time, the INFORMS Organization Science Winter Conference (OSWC 2024) took place outside North America. The conference brought editors and contributors to Organization Science, one of the most influential general-management journals, to Zurich. They examined how competing political, technological, environmental, and socioeconomic uncertainties shape organisational decisions and strategies.
The sessions took place at ETH Zurich and the Zurich Development Center from 29 February to 2 March and were hosted by the ETH Chair of Technology and Innovation Management. Stefano Brusoni, its head and OSWC 2024 organisational committee member, says: “It was great to host the first-ever OSWC outside of the US here in Zurich. The conference was a great team effort, made possible by the trust of INFORMS and the generous support of Zurich Insurance and ETH Risk Center.”
The conference fostered exchange across disciplines and methods, and between academia and practice. In one of the panels, Eugenia Cacciatori (Bayes Business School) and Konstantinos Chalkias (Birkbeck College) discussed the influence of climate risk on insurance architecture with ETH Professor of Climate Risks David Bresch and Mario Greco, CEO at Zurich Insurance. The current editor-in-chief, Lamar Pierce (Olin Business School), conferred with his predecessors Gautam Auja (Cornell), Daniel Levinthal (Wharton) and Arie Lewin (Duke University), who co-founded the journal in 1990.
The thematic spectrum of the other panels reached from integrating human and artificial intelligence to the edges of rational decision-making under extreme conditions. As the heart of the OSWC, the poster sessions showcased a comprehensive selection of contemporary management research. Joyce He (UCLA) and Rhea Li (ETH Zurich) took home the Best Poster Awards for their posters titled Elevators versus Stairs: Gendered Pathways to Promotion in the Public Service Sector and Entrepreneurial Framing: Understanding the use of Dynamic Narratives to Maintain Stakeholder Engagement, respectively.
Empowering Emerging Researchers
OSWC 2024 featured a doctoral consortium for the first time, which saw high attendance and enthusiastic participants. Daniella Laureiro Martinez (ETH Zurich) facilitated a supportive environment for early-career researchers to present their work and interact with each other and with established scholars both in formal roundtables and in a lively ask-me-anything session. Their positive feedback highlights the conference’s commitment to nurturing the next generation of organisational scientists.
The intense daytime programme was concluded with fireside chats, in which distinguished scholars rewired the conference contributions to the guiding questions of how organisations change under less influence of singular rationality but more machine intelligence.
-
Introduction by the organisational committee -
Doctoral Consortium -
Doctoral Consortium -
Lamar Pierce -
Panel session at the Zurich Development Center -
Crunching numbers
The success of OSWC 2024 owes much to the dedication and efforts of the organising committee: Stefano Brusoni (ETH Zurich), Vibha Gaba (INSEAD Singapore), John Joseph (UC Irvine), and Violina Rindova (UC Irvine). From planning to execution, they ensured a rich experience for all participants, reaffirming OSWC's position as a premier forum for advancing organisational science.
The conference would not have been possible without the support of Axel Zeijen, Monica Heinz and Parinitha Mundra from the Chair of Technology and Innovation Management, which also acted as a sponsor along with the ETH Risk Center and Zurich Insurance.
