Professor Paolo Aversa

About

Overview

Paolo Aversa is Professor of Strategy at Bayes Business School - City, University of London -, where he served as Director of the Full Time MBA (2017-2021). He has also held several visiting and honorary affiliations in various institutions including UCL School of Management, ESADE, Stockholm School of Economics, University of Trento, Bologna Business School, Luxembourg School of Business, and CUOA Business School. At Bayes he teaches strategy and innovation-related subjects at MBA, MSc and PhD level, and he collaborates with Bayes Executive Education. Paolo originally joined Bayes thanks to a IEF Marie Curie Fellowship (2012-2014).

His research concentrates on innovation and the evolution of industries and ecosystems. He focuses on technology-intensive settings to explore radical innovations, digital transformation, and business models. He is globally considered one of the leading academic experts in the motorsport and Formula 1 industry.
His works are published in Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Research Policy, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Product Innovation Management. Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, Industrial and Corporate Change, California Management Review, Enterprise & Society, and Long Range Planning, among others. He serves as Associate Editor at Journal of Management Studies (starting in 2023), in the editorial board of Organization Science and Academy of Management Discoveries, for which he is also guest-editing a special issue on "Exploring the Modern Organizational Context Through the Lens of Sports." He is Director of Communications and appointed officer of the Strategic Management STR Division of the Academy of Management.

His research often features in international media, including in the Financial Times, New York Times, BBC, Sky, Forbes, Reuters, Sunday Times, The Times, The Telegraph, The National, and in most sport-related outlets.

Paolo received around 20 awards for his research, teaching and impact. In 2018 he was listed among the World's Best 40 under 40 Professors by Poets and Quant and received the "Talented Young Italians" award for Research and Innovation from the Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry for the UK and the Italian Embassy in London. In 2015 he won the First Prize for the SIIE-EBS Best-Paper-Award "Innovation Management" for one of his work spublished in Organization Science. In 2014 he was selected as runner-up for the prestigious ‘“EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Communicating Science Prize” which shortlists the 10 Marie-Curie funded scientific projects that excelled in the outreach to the general public, had the widest coverage in mainstream media, and displayed the most innovative approach to dissemination.

He collaborates with several universities and he often presents his works and industry analyses in international conferences, firms, and institutions – including the House of Commons, and the EU Commission. He serves as Non-Executive Director at Zonin1821, and in the advisory board of several companies, within and outside the racetrack.

Before joining Bayes, Paolo worked as Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Management Department of the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where he also held a visiting scholar position at the Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Center. He obtained his PhD from the University of Bologna, Italy.

Qualifications

• HBS Case Method Teaching Seminar, Harvard Business School, Dec 2016
• Master Degree in Communication for Complex Organizations (with honors), University of Padua, Padua, Italy, Sep 2006 – Oct 2007
• M.B.A., Fondazione CUOA, Italy, Jun 2004 – Sep 2005
• Bachelor Degree in Communication Sciences for Business (with honors), University of Padua, Padua, Italy, Sep 2001 – Jul 2004
• Post Doc (Wharton School, UPenn), uknown, unknown
• Ph.D. in Management, University of Bologna, Italy

Employment

• Non Executive Director, Zonin1821, Feb 2022 – present
• Full Time MBA Course Director, Bayes Business School, Sep 2017 – present
• Senior Lecturer in Strategy, Dublin Business School, Jan 2017 – present
• Lecturer in Strategy, Bayes Business School, Jan 2014 – Jan 2017
• Marie Curie Fellow of Strategy, Bayes Business School, Jan 2012 – Jan 2014
• Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Jul 2011 – Jul 2012
• Visiting Scholar, Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Center, Sep 2009 – Jul 2011

Visiting appointments

• Research Fellow, Center for Sports and Business, Stockholm School of Economics, Nov 2017 – present
• Research Fellow, Center for Automotive and Mobility Innovation (CAMI), University Ca’ Foscari, Venice, Italy, Oct 2015 – present
• Visiting Professor, University of Trento, Italy, Jan 2015 – present
• Visiting Scholar and Post Doctoral Research Fellow, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Sep 2009 – Jul 2012

Fellowships

• Fellow, Center for Automotive Mobility and Innovation CAMI - University Ca' Foscari, Venice, Italy, 2015 – present
• Marie Curie Research Fellow, Cass Business School, City University London, Jun 2011 – Jun 2012

Memberships of professional organisations

• Member, CENTIVE - Centre for New Technologies, Innovation and Enterprise, Cass Business School, City University London, Jul 2012 – present
• Member, Academy of Management, track Business Policy and Strategy and Technology and Innovation Management, 2010 – present
• Member and reviewer, Strategic Management Society, Jun 2009 – present

Awards

• SIIE-EBS (2015) Best Paper Award "Innovation Management"
  Driving Performance via Exploration in Changing Environments: Evidence from Formula One Racing. Co-authors: Alessandro Marino, Luiz Mesquita & Jaideep Anand Published in Organization Science, 26(4), pp. 1079-1100. The Best-Paper-Award “Innovation Management” honors outstanding scientific papers on Innovation and Technology Management that combine cutting-edge research and high practical relevance, providing state-of-the-art insights.
• European Commission Research Council (2014) Marie-Curie Communicating Science Prize
  “Runner-up” Finalist of the Marie-Curie Communicating Science Prize (shortlist of 10 works with the highest impact on the media from any field of science – only finalist from the Economics and Social Science divisions).
• European Academy of Management Conference (EURAM) (2011) 1st Prize for the Best Ph.D. Paper Award
  2011 European Academy of Management Annual Conference (Tallin, Estonia).

Languages

French, German, Italian and Spanish; Castilian.

Expertise

Primary topics

• Digital Economy
• Innovation & Creativity
• Strategic Management
• Technology Management

Industries

• aerospace
• automotive
• biotechnology
• engineering
• high technology
• manufacturing
• sports
• wine, spirits & alcohol

Geographic Areas

• Americas - North
• Europe

Research

Formula 1 project

Supported by the Marie Curie Actions (Intra European Fellowship - FP7) and partially from the EPSRC grant on "Building better business model" the Formula 1 project was officially started in 2012 under the coordination of Dr Paolo Aversa, one of the leading experts in the Motorsport industry.

Formula 1 is an industry worthy of study in and of itself. F1 is-in fact-the most watched annual sporting series in the world, with more than 525 million people watching over the course of the season. It has an estimate turnover of more than US$4 billion; employs around 50,000 people in more than 30 countries; and embodies the cutting edge of technology in the automotive industry. What is more, the technologies developed for F1 racing are relevant to many other industries far removed from the racetrack. Innovations by leading teams such as Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull, Williams among others have made their way not only into the regular road car industry (e.g. ABS breaks, aerodynamics, finger-controlled gear shift systems, etc.), but also bicycling (e.g. Ultra-light carbon-fiber composites), the tracking of people in factory shop-floors, hospitals, or sports training for the Olympics (e.g., advanced telemetry systems), advanced engineering (e.g., virtual design and simulators), and even public transportation systems (e.g., flywheel energy storage mechanisms).

Publications

1. Fonti, F., Ross, J.-.M. and Aversa, P. (2023). Using Sports Data to Advance Management Research: A Review and a Guide for Future Studies. Journal of Management, 49(1), pp. 325–362. doi:10.1177/01492063221117525.

   [publisher’s website]

2. Aversa, P., Bianchi, E., Gaio, L. and Nucciarelli, A. (2022). The Grand Tour: The Role of Catalyzing Places for Industry Emergence. Academy of Management Journal, 65(6), pp. 2058–2091. doi:10.5465/amj.2019.1303.

   [publisher’s website]

3. Aversa, P., Furnari, S. and Jenkins, M. (2022). The Primordial Soup: Exploring the Emotional Microfoundations of Cluster Genesis. Organization Science, 33(4), pp. 1340–1371. doi:10.1287/orsc.2021.1484.

   [publisher’s website]

4. Aversa, P., Huyghe, A. and Bonadio, G. (2021). First Impressions Stick: Market Entry Strategies and Category Priming in the Digital Domain. Journal of Management Studies, 58(7), pp. 1721–1760. doi:10.1111/joms.12712.

   [publisher’s website]

5. Aversa, P. and Guillotin, O. (2018). Firm technological responses to regulatory changes: A longitudinal study in the Le Mans Prototype racing. Research Policy, 47(9), pp. 1655–1673. doi:10.1016/j.respol.2018.06.001.

   [publisher’s website]

6. Aversa, P. and Berinato, S. (2017). Sometimes, Less Innovation is Better. Harvard Business Review, 95(3), pp. 38–39.

   [publisher’s website]

7. Aversa, P., Furnari, S. and Haefliger, S. (2015). Business model configurations and performance: A qualitative comparative analysis in Formula One racing, 2005-2013. Industrial and Corporate Change, 24(3), pp. 655–676. doi:10.1093/icc/dtv012.

   [publisher’s website]

8. Marino, A., Aversa, P., Mesquita, L. and Anand, J. (2015). Driving performance via exploration in changing environments: Evidence from formula one racing. Organization Science, 26(4), pp. 1079–1100. doi:10.1287/orsc.2015.0984.

Professional activities