Join us for the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research Seminar Series 22/23 with Dr Eugenia Cacciatori, Senior Lecturer in Management at Bayes Business School, City, University of London.
Register to attend via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/manchester-institute-of-innovation-research-dr-eugenia-cacciatori-tickets-616994265457
Simulations at the nexus of known and unknown: Catastrophe models in terrorism insurance
Authors: Eugenia Cacciatori, Paula Jarzabkowski, Rebecca Bednarek, and Konstantinos Chalkias.
Abstract:
We explore how simulations enable actors to deal with the many unknowns, both unintended and intentional, that characterize terrorism via a qualitative study of simulations in terrorism insurance. We find that the structure of simulation models allows the compartmentalization of different types of ignorance, unintended and strategic, tamable and untamable. This, in turn, allows actors to employ different strategies to deal with different types of ignorance in both the use and development of simulation models. We identify a number of strategies that actors use in dealing with ignorance - accepting, working around and ignoring ignorance - and show how these take place through selective coupling of simulations with specific uses. We show how knowledge generation is intertwined with the generation of ignorance and that the need to preserve ignorance and to uncover it is fundamental to the way simulation models create and make knowledge available for use. We make contributions to the understanding of how models make possible to deal with phenomena characterized by persistent unknowns.
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Speaker Bio:
Eugenia Cacciatori is Senior Lecturer in Management at Bayes Business School. Her interests are in the organisational processes of innovation. She investigates the role of objects, such as physical and digital models, in knowledge creation and exchange within and across organisations in science and technology-intensive settings. She is also interested in how key organisations shape and coordinate innovation in a field, an area she has explored in relation to the development of HIV vaccines and more recently disaster insurance and resilience. Eugenia holds a PhD in Science and Technology Policy and an MSc in Technology and Innovation Management, both from SPRU (University of Sussex). She graduated in Industrial Engineering with Management at Politecnico di Milano (Italy). Eugenia’s research has been published in journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management Studies, Organization Studies, and Research Policy.
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The Manchester Institute of Innovation Research runs a series of regular seminars given by visiting speakers to Manchester. These seminars are open to anybody who is interested in science, technology and innovation policy and management.
