The seminar will take place on Tuesday, October 21st, from 12:00 to 13:00 (HG-05A37).
This is a lunch seminar; please register your attendance by accepting/declining your emailed invitation by Friday, October 17th, at 10 AM at the latest (for catering).
Abstract
We explore the evolution of hope in a failing process to develop a highly novel innovation. We draw on longitudinal, real-time data from a four-years project, which ultimately did not produce a highly novel outcome. Its prolonged duration, despite a persistent lack of progress, stemmed from the unintended, yet harmful, effects of practices that cultivated hope on the front stage (during meetings). Yet, backstage negative emotions connected to reduction of outcome value accumulated. Hope kept the project going until the novelty of the goal had eroded ambitions to the point that no one wished to invest further effort. We present a model of the process by which hope becomes hollowed out. It shows how hope is cultivated as a positive emotion to keep the project going, but in doing so creates an illusion of activity and movement, until it collapses. We discuss hope as a collective, relational emotion that acts as social glue in situations of uncertainty, yet also carries its own downsides. Finally, we conceptualize unmet outcome value as a form of failure that unfolds over time.
ABRI Lunch Seminar Renate Kratochvil 21 October 2025 12:00 - 13:00
About ABRI Lunch Seminar Renate Kratochvil
Starting date
- 21 October 2025
Time
- 12:00 - 13:00
Location
- VU Main Building
- HG-05A37
Address
- De Boelelaan 1105
- 1081 HV Amsterdam
Organised by
- ABRI and the KIN Center for Digital Innovation
Language
- English
Short Biography of Renate Kratochvil
I am an Assistant Professor in Strategic Management at Stockholm School of Economics. I study processes of decision making in the context of highly uncertain outcomes (such as radical innovations and highly new strategies). I draw on theories from research on emotions, embodiment and framing to provide insights into actor’s practices to “deal with the unknown”. In my research I endeavour to show how this over time leads to processes of succeeding or failing. I am also interested in the role of AI for qualitative research. Among others my research was published in Research Policy, Long Rang Planning, and Global Strategy Journal. I serve as a Guest Editor at Organization Studies. Before joining SSE, I was a postdoctoral research fellow at BI Norwegian Business School. I was also a Visiting Scholar at VU Amsterdam, King’s Business School, Warwick Business School, and Stanford University.