Presentation Session #4: Innovation, Learning & Spatial / Policy Dynamics

When: Thursday, March 12, 2026 — 16:00–17:30
Room: A.451 — Deloitte

Presentations

1. Karelle L'Heureux

Title: De points sur une carte à la spatialité urbaine : articuler les affaires internationales et les études urbaines dans l'analyse des choix de localisation

Summary: Cet article propose un cadre conceptuel visant un dialogue entre affaires internationales et études urbaines. En se concentrant sur la littérature discutant des déterminants des choix de localisation des entreprises étrangères fidèles aux deux traditions, ce cadre conceptuel offre de nouveaux liens inédits entre conceptions économiques et caractéristiques morphologiques afin de comprendre l’influence de la forme urbaine sur les stratégies d’internationalisation de ces entreprises. La mobilisation de la morphologie urbaine permet de démontrer que les choix de localisation et leurs paramètres stratégiques traditionnels s’inscrivent toujours dans des configurations spatiales et des logiques matérielles propres aux milieux urbains. Pour cette raison, les villes, et plus particulièrement les villes globales, sont introduites comme concept médiateur. À la fois objet des études urbaines et nœud stratégique pour les entreprises étrangères, ce concept permet de soutenir une vision où les villes ne sont pas de simples réceptacles des investissements directs étrangers. Le cadre théorique aboutit à une série de propositions théoriques qui postulent notamment que l’environnement bâti et certaines typologies morphologiques influencent différemment la localisation et l’ancrage social, économique et culturel des entreprises étrangères. Enfin, l’article discute des implications scientifiques et pratiques de cette approche intégrée et holistique de l’analyse des choix de localisation.

2. Zhuoyue Pang

Title: Adapting to Open Access Innovation: A Longitudinal Analysis of Policy Mandates and Gendered Responses

Summary: Open Access (OA) mandates are new institutional policies designed to facilitate free knowledge dissemination, yet they introduce financial barriers that may interact with existing gender disparities in scientific production. In this paper, I examine the gendered consequences of these ostensibly neutral mandates, focusing on whether they serve as a leveling process for female researchers. For this purpose, I draw on a longitudinal study of 110,166 publications from two major teaching hospitals in Quebec during 2008-2024, utilizing a difference-in-differences (DID) design to analyze the impact of the 2015 Canadian OA policy and 2019 Quebec OA policy. I find that while both OA policies increase overall adoption, they catalyze a heterogeneous response where female first authors exhibit a significantly stronger increase in OA adoption than their male counterparts immediately following the policy. Furthermore, my study explains female first authors’ response as a form of immediate compliance driven by their heightened need for legitimacy in response to institutional pressures, as this gender difference diminishes over time. With these findings, I contribute to the literature on gender inequality in science and open innovation.

3. Syeda Sonia Parvin

Title: Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2023-07 and Earnings Management: Evidence from Sepment Reporting

Summary: This study explores how the introduction of Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2023-07 reshapes firms’ earnings management behavior through changes in segment reporting. Using U.S. multi-segment firms from 2010–2025, this study examines ASU 2023-07 as an exogenous regulatory shock and applies a difference-in-differences design to assess whether enhanced transparency constrains managerial discretion or induces substitution across earnings management channels. I document three main findings. First, firms with more highly decoupled segment profit measures exhibit significantly higher abnormal accruals in the post-ASU period, indicating a shift toward accrual-based earnings management when segment-level discretion is limited. Second, I observe no evidence of a corresponding increase in real earnings management, suggesting that managers prefer more flexible, reporting-stage adjustments over costly operational actions. Third, although classification shifting between operating segments and corporate/other segments persists, the incremental impact of ASU 2023-07 on this behavior is limited in the short run. Overall, the results suggest that enhanced segment disclosure improves transparency but does not eliminate opportunistic reporting; instead, it reallocates earnings management across reporting channels. These findings contribute to the segment reporting and earnings management literature by providing the early empirical evidence of the consequences of ASU 2023-07 and have important implications for regulators, investors, and standard setters evaluating the effectiveness of disclosure-based reforms.

4. Jean-Frédérick Labranche

Title: The (un)ethical bystander: moving beyond the action-inaction dichotomy in ethical dilemmas

Summary: This study examines the ethics of bystanders in non-emergency ethical scenarios, focusing on how individuals intend to act, or remain passive, and how they justify their choices. The bystander effect explains why individuals may fail to act or provide support in emergency situations. Failing to act in such situations may create moral distress, though individuals may attempt to rationalize their behavior by utilizing moral disengagement mechanisms. The moral disengagement theory enlightens us on the cognitive processes that allow individuals to deactivate self-sanction, enabling them to engage in unethical behavior while feeling morally safe. Using vignette-based interviews with business school students, we propose a two-axis framework distinguishing behavioral outcomes (action vs. inaction) from justification orientation (others-oriented, self-oriented), yielding four behavior-justification pairs. This framework positions ethical bystanders along a continuum of moral engagement that moves beyond the traditional action-inaction dichotomy. This continuum captures intermediate states such as self-interested action and engaged inaction. We also describe how belief-action misalignment can produce moral distress and how individuals may engage in partial action as a way to reduce that moral tension, a process we term moral settlement.