About me

I am a researcher excited about pushing the frontiers of value generating potential of individuals, organizations and Government by helping them make better decisions using technology. To this end, I'm currently studying two developments: advanced analytics and  open innovation.

I enjoy interdisciplinary research. A cornerstone of my research style is boundary spanning other reference disciplines to inform and enrich my work.  Thus, I've drawn from behavioral economics, sense-making and theories of choice and decision making among others. I believe that not only is there much to be gained at the confluence of IS and the social sciences but also in the melding of IS and the hard sciences such as engineering and computer science. This belief is founded in having cut my teeth in quintessentially interdisciplinary fields such as robotics and industrial automation as part of my professional experience. I've also benefitted from educational experiences in diverse domains including Manufacturing Eng., Industrial Eng., Software Eng. and General management. 

Having worked directly with C-level and board-level executives in large organizations, I am comfortable engaging at any level in an organization. Having done two start-ups, I bring to my research and teaching a perspective grounded in the real world. 

Research motivation

I find it useful to compare running an organization to flying a plane as a way to frame my research work. The dominant logic till recently has been a closed cockpit door with pilots inside doing the flying. Two recent developments challenging these assumptions are open innovation and advanced analytics. First, with open innovation, the cockpit door is opening up slowly and the wisdom of the crowds is being harnessed. Second, with the dawn of the cognitive computing era, advanced analytics is taking over from humans some of the organizational interpretation and decision making. I contend that both these developments will permeate more aspects of organizational decision making, helping firms overcome the bounded rationality of the behavioral economists’ predictably irrational man. Just as machines flying planes has reduced instances of grounded planes, machine augmentation should reduce instances of organizational decisions that destroy value. This prospect of amplifying the value creation potential of organizations and individuals exhilarates me and lies at the heart of my research work- The enabling role of technology in helping organizations and individuals make better decisions, leading to a smarter, more equitable and sustainable world.

Please feel free to browse my research interests. Should you have any questions or comments or wish to say hello, you could either use the contact form or email me directly at asharmaz@umich.edu.  Thanks!