My personal website: https://joyzhaozheng.com/
I am a Ph.D. candidate in Management (Entrepreneurship) at INSEAD, on the 2026–27 academic job market. I study how emerging technologies reshape the production, distribution, and valuation of creative work, drawing on creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, and organization theory. My research is grounded in deep, ongoing relationships with the entrepreneurs and practitioners in the industries I study. Before academia, I worked in the film industry (2014–2018) as a special-effects producer and entrepreneur.
MY ONGOING RESEARCH
My dissertation, "Organizing Creativity in the Digital Age: How Emerging Technologies Reshape the Production, Distribution, and Valuation of Creative Work," examines how creative teams in the movie industry produce creative work and how technological shifts, such as streaming, reshape its valuation. My first chapter, on how digital distribution affects novelty evaluation (with Henrich Greve), won the Best Paper Award in the TIM Division of the Academy of Management (Philadelphia, 2026). A related stream asks how organizations adapt to AI — how established firms reorganize as the technology matures, and how new ventures are built AI-native from the inception.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
- Innovation in Creative Industries — how technological change drives innovation in creative fields: how novel work is produced, judged, and valued, and how creative teams adapt.
- AI & Organizing — how organizations become AI-native: how startups are built around AI from day one, and how established firms reorganize as the technology matures.
- Entrepreneurship & Strategy — how entrepreneurs adapt strategy to technological shifts, and the new business models emerging in the AI era.
