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Balázs Kovács

Balázs Kovács

Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior

Professor Kovács studies how socially structured information such as categories, awards, online reviews, and social networks shape audiences’ perceptions and evaluations in creative domains such as music, literature, dining, or technology. Focusing on audiences is important because in creative domains quality and relevance are often elusive, making social evaluations particularly important. Quality here is constructed in part through categorization and the interaction of heterogenous audience segments and networks. His research takes a sociological approach, in which actors, objects, organizations, and markets are located in a relational space, and heterogeneity, positioning, and networks are studied by exploring the locations and movements in this relational space.

Professor Kovács typically uses large-scale, “big data” approaches to study these questions, analyzing online reviews and social networks. His research appears in journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, American Sociological Review, Organization Science, Management Science, Nature Biotechnology, Psychological Science, Research Policy, Social Networks, and Strategic Management Journal.

Professor Kovács received his PhD from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Prior to joining the Yale School of Management, he was an assistant professor at the University of Lugano, Switzerland.
 

Education

  • PhD, Stanford University, 2009

Articles

What’s next? Artists’ music after Grammy Awards

Giacomo Negro, Balázs Kovács, Glenn R. Carroll
American Sociological Review
2022 Articles

What does homophily do? A review of the consequences of homophily

Gokhan Ertug, Julia Brennecke, Balázs Kovács, and Tengjian Zou
Academy of Management Annals
2022 Articles

Authenticity: Meanings, targets, audiences and third Parties

Glenn R. Carroll, Balázs Kovács
Research in Organizational Behavior
2022 Articles

Linguistic Style Similarity and Network Formation

B. Kovács and A. Kleinbaum
Psychological Science
2020 Articles

The Ecology of Management Concepts

J. Denrell and B. Kovács
Strategy Science
2020 Articles

Books

Achievements

  • Academy of Management Annals Best Paper of 2019 Award, 2020
  • SO! WHAT award winner for the best paper published in 2014, 2019