PhD Dissertation Defense, Camille Doche, Strategy & Business Policy

Congratulations to Dr Camille Doche, Strategy & Business Policy, who successfully defended her doctoral thesis at HEC Paris on the 28th of May 2024.

Specialization: Strategy & Business Policy
Topic: Essays on Cooperative Organizations and Collective Resources
Supervisors: Professor Olivier Chatain

Jury members: 
Professor Olivier CHATAIN, HEC Paris, France, Supervisor
Associate Professor Jiao LUO, Carlson School of Business, University of Minnesota, US
Associate Professor Xavier HOLLANDTS, Kedge Business School, France
Professor Emilie FELDMAN, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, US
Professor Bertrand QUELIN, HEC Paris, France

Abstract:
This dissertation focuses on organizations’ use of collective resources which are shared with other organizations, including competitors. Specifically, this work examines the interactions between cooperative organizational forms – which are relying on shared resources – and other resources, whether collective or not (e.g. privately owned resources, Common-Pool Resources, public resources), and the consequences for firm performance. The first chapter investigates members defection from cooperatives, and explores retention practices cooperatives can adopt to retain these members. It relies on proprietary data from a prominent wine cooperative in France. While the first chapter examines reasons for members within a cooperative to discontinue using shared resources, the locus of study shifts in the second chapter to explore industry-wide factors that may influence the utilization of shared resources. Specifically, it delves into the role of Common-Pool Resources (CPRs or Commons) in this decision. The second chapter thus examines how collective resources within cooperatives may conflict with CPRs and undermine each other. The identification strategy relies on an instrumental variable thanks to hand-collected data on AOC in France and geographic data on fruit production in France which is paired with confidential data from the French Customs Authorities. Building on the second chapter's exploration of CPRs, the third chapter redefines performance in contexts where such commons are at risk of depletion. It explores how non-exploitation of resources can indicate performance for firms. This dissertation contributes significantly to both theory and empirical strategy research, while simultaneously offering practical implications for practitioners. The theoretical contribution of this dissertation lies in providing new insights on cooperative structures from a strategic perspective, as well as deepening our understanding of the importance of collective resources on firms’ strategy. Empirically, this dissertation employs original and fine-grained data not previously used in management sciences and provides a robust causal identification method. Furthermore, the inclusion of geographic data introduces a promising new data source for research in strategy and business policy, enabling a better understanding of organizations and their interactions within their local contexts.

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