Creation of a Canada Research Chair in Organizational Learning

HEC Montréal announces the creation of a new Canada Research Chair in Organizational Learning. This Chair will be held by Jean-François Harvey, Associate Professor in the Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

The aim of this new Chair is to provide a better understanding of how teams and leaders learn and adapt in demanding work environments. Professor Harvey favours a robust methodological approach that combines observations, interviews, surveys and experiments.

His research objectives are divided into three areas:

1. Time dynamics and configurations of learning behaviours – explaining how different learning behaviours combine and unfold over time to support performance across task constraints.
2. Team learning in the face of digital and social tensions: AI and hybrid work – clarifying how certain contemporary factors, particularly the rise of AI tools and remote or hybrid work environments, reshape team learning dynamics.
3. Team learning and organizational capabilities: sensing, seizing, reconfiguring – establishing how team learning enables broader organizational capabilities to sense opportunities, seize them, and reconfigure activities for continued success.

About Jean-François Harvey

In addition to being an Associate Professor at HEC Montréal and a Canada Research Chairholder, Jean-François Harvey also serves as Senior Editor for the scientific journal Organization Science. During his doctoral studies at HEC Montréal, he was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and subsequently completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Business School.

His research focuses on how teams and leaders learn and adapt in uncertain and ambiguous contexts. He is interested in the dynamics of collective learning, as well as in the design conditions that support or hinder these activities.

Drawing on field studies, longitudinal approaches and experimental devices, he seeks to link fine mechanisms (cognitive, motivational and relational) to broader strategic issues: sustainable performance, adaptability, psychological health of decision-makers and organizational transformation. 

His research increasingly explores the impact of AI tools (agents, generative systems) and remote work on how teams distribute attention, interpret information, and reconfigure their roles to learn effectively. It also aims to highlight the distinct patterns of learning and collaboration behaviours that emerge in such contexts.