Chan Hyung Park

Description

We recently had the pleasure of hosting Chan Hyung Park (Senior Researcher at the Chair of Strategic Management and Innovation at ETH Zurich) for a seminar on one of his latest research projects:
“Role of Problem Formulation in Developing Novel and Valuable Strategies”.

Chan’s talk addressed a key question in strategic problem-solving: What are the characteristics of problem formulations that allow for novel and valuable solutions to strategic (nearly decomposable) problems? Based on large-scale field experiments with decision-makers in China’s agriculture sector, Chan’s findings show that in addition to comprehensive problem formulation, conceptual integration is a key driver of innovative strategies.
In practice, this means that managers need to go beyond simply listing or categorizing the causes of organizational problems (as in traditional tools like “five whys” or MECE) and instead actively reflect on how those causes are connected in order to generate novel solutions.

The seminar ties into our ongoing work at HiA, where we study how problem-solving unfolds in large organizations, especially when decision-making is distributed across hierarchical levels.

Thanks to Chan for sharing his research and for taking the time to meet individually with members of the HiA team to discuss ongoing projects and provide valuable feedback.

Period	16 Jun 2025 → 17 Jun 2025
Visiting from	ETH Zürich (Switzerland)