Thomas ASTEBRO

Professeur

Economie et Sciences de la Décision

astebro@hec.fr
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Biographie

Thomas Åstebro is the Executive Director and Professor at the ION Management Science Lab at HEC Paris; and Scientific Director and Founder of the Creative Desctruction Lab in Paris. Leading the ION Lab he directs a group of researchers on the selection and training of talent, with a focus on AI augmentation of these human processes. He recently concluded an RCT at scale in Ecuador where over 30,000 high school students were touched with various new online training initiatives. He is now scaling up an RCT with France Travail, seeking to train the unemployed in useful skills using online and AI tools to get them to employment or to become entrepreneurs. With Carlos Serrano, CDL and the HEC Incubateur he is also exploring how to better identify and select ventures and to augment training and mentoring of founders using new AI tools. He has held various high-level administrative positions at HEC and University of Waterloo and has been an entrepreneur four times.  He is listed in Marquis Who's Who in the World , is among the top 1 percent most downloaded authors on www.ssrn, has made over 300 presentations, published over 40 academic journal articles, and has been mentioned in business media over 50 times (including The Economist, Business Week, The Times, and Wall Street Journal). He has previously held positions at University of Waterloo, University of Toronto, and KU Leuven. He earned his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in the United States and holds both a Master of Engineering and an MBA from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.

Articles scientifiques

Calibration Accuracy of a Judgmental Process that Predicts the Commercial Success of New Product Ideas

Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, octobre 2007, vol. 20, n° 4, pp 381-403, (in coll. with D. Koehler)

Inventor Perseverance after Being Told to Quit: The Role of Cognitive Biases

Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, juillet 2007, vol. 20, n° 3, pp 253-272, (in coll. with S.A. Jeffrey, G. Adomdza)

The Effectiveness of Simple Decision Heuristics: Forecasting Commercial Success for Early-Stage Ventures

Management Science, juillet 2006, vol. 52, n° 3, pp 395-409, (in coll. with S. Elhedhli)

Predictors of the Survival of Innovations

Journal of Product Innovation Management, Juillet 2005, vol. 22, n° 4, pp 322-335, (in coll. with J. Michela)

The Winner's Curse of Human Capital

Small Business Economics, 2005, vol. 24, n° 1, pp 63-78, (in coll. with I. Bernhardt)

Opportunity Knocks

Research Policy, novembre 2005, vol. 34, n° 9, pp 1404-1418, (in coll. with K. Dahlin)

Sunk Costs and the Depth and Probability of Technology Adoption

Journal of Industrial Economics, septembre 2004, vol. 52, n° 3, pp 381-399,

Key Success Factors for Technological Entrepreneurs R&D Projects

IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 2004, vol. 51, n° 3, pp 314-321,

The Return to Independent Invention: Evidence of Risk Seeking, Extreme Optimism or Skewness-Loving?

Economic Journal, janvier 2003, vol. 484, n° 113, pp 226-239,

How to Deal with Missing Categorical Data: Test of a Simple Bayesian Method

Organizational Research Methods, juillet 2003, vol. 6, n° 3, pp 309-327, (in coll. with G. Chen)

Chapitres d'ouvrages

Actes de conférence

Cahiers de recherche

Articles scientifiques

Decision biases and entrepreneurial finance

Small Business Economics, 3 février 2016, vol. 47, n° 4, pp 819–834, (in coll. with Gordon ADOMDZA, Kevyn YONG)

Equity crowdfunding: A new phenomena

Journal of Business Venturing Insights, juin 2016, vol. 5, pp 37–49, (in coll. with N. VULKAN, M. FERNANDEZ SIERRA)

Hierarchies and entrepreneurship

European Economic Review, octobre 2016, vol. 89, pp 129–147, (in coll. with J. TAG, P. THOMPSON)

Invention Quality and Entrepreneurial Earnings: The Role of Prior Employment Variety

Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, juillet 2016, vol. 40, n° 2, pp 381-400, (in coll. with K. YONG)

Chapitres d'ouvrages

Actes de conférence

Cahiers de recherche

Detecting Heterogeneous Risk Attitudes with Mixed Gambles

Cahier de Recherche du Groupe HEC , 2014

Business Partners, Financing and the Commercialization of Inventions

Mimeo , 2026

Cognitive Biases May Not be All That Bad: Their Socio-Psychological Influences on Investments and Venture Performance

Mimeo , 2026

Creative Invention and Commercialization

Mimeo , 2026

Formation

  • Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University - Etats-Unis
  • Licentiate of Technology, Chalmers University of Technology - Suède
  • Master of Science, Chalmers University of Technology - Suède

Nominations académiques

Responsabilités académiques à HEC

  • 2025- Directeur Exécutif du ION Management Lab HEC Paris

Activités scientifiques

Adhésion à l'organisation académique ou professionnelle

  • Member of the Executive Committe, SEI (Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Innovation)
  • Member of selection committee, Canadian Young Entrepreneur Award

Activités scientifiques

  • mars 2016- Editor, Small Business Economics

    • Conference organisation

  • 2017-2017 Organisateur, 6ème HEC Entrepreneurship Workshop on Entrepreneurship and Development
  • 2014-2014 Organisateur, 5ème HEC Workshop on Entrepreneurial Finance
  • 2013-2013 Organisateur, 4ème HEC Entrepreneurship Workshop on Crowdfunding
  • 2012-2012 Organisateur, 3rd HEC Entrepreneurship Workshop on Student Entrepreneurship
  • 2011- Member of the SEI (Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Innovation) Organizing Committee 2011
  • 2010-2010 Organisateur, 2nd HEC Entrepreneurship workshop on Academic Entrepreneurship
  • 2009-2009 Organisateur, 1st HEC Entrepreneurship workshop on Entrepreneurial Entry

    • Prix ​​& honneurs

    • 2016 Best Empirical Paper, AoM Entrepreneurship Division, AoM conference
    • 2016 Chair of Excellence
    • 2015 Finalist, Prix Académique de la Recherche en Management
    • 2014 Management Science Distinguished Service Award
    • 2003 Best Paper: Administrative Association of Canada, Technology and Innovation Management Division
    • 2001 National Award: 2nd place Most Promising Technology, Awarded by the Innovations Foundation, University of Toronto
    • 1999 Best Paper, Runner Up: Canadian Council on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference
    • 1995 National Award: NSERC/SSHRC/CIBC Associate Chair in Management of Technological Change
    • 1991 1994 - National Scholarship: Jan Wallander and Tom Hedelius Foundation for Research in the Social Sciences
    • 1991 National Scholarship: The Sweden-America Foundation
    • 1989 Scholarship: The Institute for Management of Innovation and Technology, Sweden, 10 year Jubilee Stipend
    • 1988 Scholarship: Arvid Lindmans Memorial Foundation
    • 1988 National Scholarship: The Swedish Natural Science Research Council