Our White Paper Competition promotes actionable and thought-provoking insights that are grounded in research. Submissions this year involved a wide array of topics, such as diversity and inclusion, employee productivity, and inequity in gender wage gaps.

A number of practitioner and practitioner/academic teams submitted white papers to the competition. Finalists were selected in a multi-round process based on the degree to which they were:

• Grounded in empirical research and rich data
• Novel, bespoke, and thought-provoking
• Actionable and practical
• Broadly applicable
• Clear and accessible
• Included data visualization insights

First Place Winner

The Future of Org1: In Invitae or Out?

This case centers on Alex Furman, a technologist and cofounder of the genetics testing company Invitae (current co-founder of Performica). It shows how Furman built Org1—Invitae’s human resources information system—to suit the collaborative, non-hierarchical structure of the company. The case traces Furman’s use of network graphs to identify who worked with whom and to find ‘quiet influencers’ who might not be readily visible in the organization. The case asks students whether people analytics technology solutions are best suited to inform leaders or to guide their decisions. While discussing some of the use cases of this approach at Invitae, the case leads to the bigger question of whether a ‘home-grown’ technology system can continue to grow and expand within a single company, or whether it requires more dedicated focus and resources to succeed.

Heather Whiteman, Assistant Teaching Professor for Data, Design & Delivery, University of Washington iSchool

Alex Furman, Co-founder and CEO of Performica, Co-Founder of Invitae