Frédéric Godart is an Associate Professor of Organisational Behavior at INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France. His research examines the factors leading to the emergence of creativity in organisations and the global dynamics of creative industries. In particular, he explores the impact of formal and informal social networks on the emergence of novel and useful ideas, and the role played by stylistic and cultural dynamics in the formation of firms' identities. Hi research focuses on fashion and luxury sectors (e.g. design, modelling, watchmaking, footwear).
Frédéric holds a PhD in Sociology from Columbia University, New York City; an MPhil in Social and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge (Trinity College), United Kingdom; and an MSc in Management from Sciences Po, Paris. He is a former fellow of the École Normale Supérieure de Cachan, France. He has recently obtained accreditation to supervise research in management at Dauphine University, Paris. Prior to becoming a full-time tenure-track faculty at INSEAD, he held a post-doctoral research and teaching fellow position at the school for a period of two years. He has received several prestigious awards such as the Academy of Management Organisational Behaviour Division’s 2012 Best Paper Award.
At INSEAD, Frédéric teaches Organisational Behavior II: Leading Organisations (OB2), Power and Politics (P&P), and Value Creation in Luxury and Fashion (VCL&F) courses in the MBA programme. The goal of the OB2 course is to help the participants understand and leverage the social dynamics that occur in organisations. The P&P course aims to assist participants in developing a conceptual framework to understand power and gain defensive and offensive political skills. The VCL&F course offers a broad overview of luxury and fashion to help participants pursue successful careers in these sectors. Frédéric also teaches the Organisational Sociology and Advanced Topics in Organisational Behaviour/Organisational Theory courses in the PhD programme. He has written various case studies on luxury and fashion industries (LVMH, Raf Simons at Dior, WGSN...).
He has published his research in a wide range of leading academic peer-reviewed journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Organization Studies, the Annual Review of Sociology, and Social Forces, practitioner-oriented journals (notably Harvard Business Review), as well as several edited books. Frédéric wrote a book on the structure and culture of the fashion industry,
Sociologie de la mode (A Sociology of Fashion), which has been translated into
Portuguese(Brazil) and
Spanish (Argentina) languages. An extended English translation (at Palgrave-MacMillan) is available under the title
Unveiling Fashion. He also wrote a book on the intellectual history of fashion,
Penser la Mode (Thinking about Fashion). His work and expertise has been extensively featured in international media such as The New York Times, El País, Financial Times and Women's Wear Daily, and in French national media such as Le Monde, Les Échos, and Le Figaro.
Prior to completing his PhD, Frédéric worked three years for McKinsey & Company, Belgium, where he developed his practical business knowledge in several functional areas, in particular, competitive intelligence and social network analysis. He was involved in multiple strategic studies for a wide range of clients from various industrial sectors.''
