Maria Christina Binz-Scharf

Bio

I am an assistant professor of Management in the Economics Department at the City College of New York (CUNY). Prior to that, I was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, after having defended my doctoral dissertation in Business Economics at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland in May 2003. From 2001 to 2003 I was a visiting doctoral fellow at the Kennedy School of Government on a grant awarded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Before my stay at Harvard, I co-founded and managed the Center of Excellence for Electronic Government at the Institute of Public Services and Tourism at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. I hold a Master's degree in business economics from Bocconi University in Milan, Italy.

My research interests are information technology and organizational behavior, social networks, and organizational theory. In my dissertation I examined the role of knowledge sharing in the implementation of Internet-related innovation projects. Based on extensive empirical data, I developed a theory suggesting that the implementation of these projects requires a balanced mix of knowledge exploration and exploitation where, due to the degree of task decomposability, exploration is more important in the conceptual phase of the project, and exploitation becomes more fruitful in the implementation phase. I'm currently working on a project examining the role of the Internet in the diffusion of learning across governmental units exemplified in the use of DNA in the criminal justice system.