Pilar Opazo is a Post-Doctoral Associate and Lecturer in the “Work and Organization Studies” group at MIT Sloan School of Management. She did her PhD in Sociology at Columbia University. Her research explores how organizational contexts shape social behavior. Specifically, her research interests include Organizational and Economic Sociology, Innovation Studies, Qualitative Methods, Negotiation, and Science and Technology Studies.
Her book “Appetite for Innovation: Change and Creativity at elBulli” (2016), published with Columbia University Press, uses ethnographic techniques to examine the nature of radical and systematic innovation. Her investigation considers the case of elBulli, the avant-garde restaurant directed by Chef Ferran Adria that has pioneered the “molecular” or “experimental” cuisine movement in the gastronomy industry. http://cup.columbia.edu/book/appetite-for-innovation/9780231176781 Pilar’s doctoral thesis received the “Robert K. Merton Award” for Best Dissertation in 2014, awarded by the Sociology Department at Columbia University. Her research has been supported by a Fulbright Scholarship and a grant awarded by Telefonica Digital, Barcelona, major telecommunication company in Spain.
Her other published works include two peer-reviewed articles, “Politics of Meaning in Categorizing Innovation” published in Organization Studies (2019, with Barbara Slavich, Silviya Svejenova and Gerardo Patriotta), “Order at the Edge or Chaos” published in Sociological Theory (2011, with Jorge Fontdevila and Harrison White) and “Discourse as a Driver of Innovation” published in the International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science (2012). Also, two Spanish-language books, “Negotiation: Competing or Collaborating” (2006, with Cristian Saieh and Dario Rodriguez) and “Communications in Organizations” (2007, with Dario Rodriguez).
During 2008 and 2009, under the frame of the Center on Organizational Innovation (COI), Pilar conducted ethnographic and network-analytic research at “Citilab” a center of social innovation located in Barcelona. Before coming to Columbia University, Pilar coordinated the Research Center of “Infocap,” a foundation that provides labor training to unskilled workers in Chile.
