Balázs Kovács

Professor Kovács studies how socially structured information, such as categories, awards, online reviews, and social networks, shape audiences’ perceptions and evaluations in creative domains, such as music, literature, dining, and technology.

Focusing on audiences is important because in creative domains quality and relevance are often elusive, making social evaluations particularly important. Quality here is constructed in part through categorization and the interaction of heterogenous audience segments and networks. His research takes a sociological approach, in which actors, objects, organizations, and markets are located in a relational space, and heterogeneity, positioning, and networks are studied by exploring the locations and movements in this relational space.

Professor Kovács typically uses large-scale, “big data” approaches to study these questions, analyzing online reviews and social networks. His research appears in journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, American Sociological Review, Organization Science, Management Science, Nature Biotechnology, Psychological Science, Research Policy, Social Networks, and Strategic Management Journal.

Professor Kovács received his Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Prior to joining the Yale School of Management, he was an assistant professor at the University of Lugano, Switzerland.