Learning curves, organizational learning, quality, productivity, industry studies, sports analytics, competitive balance
Operations Management & Quantitative Methods
Professor Michael A. Lapré is an internationally known expert on organizational learning curves.
In 2024, Professor Lapré was awarded the Chancellor’s Cup for the greatest contribution outside the classroom to undergraduate student-faculty relationships. His other awards include the Shingo Research Prize, the Stan Hardy Award (twice), Wickham Skinner Awards for Best Paper (thrice), the Dean's Award for Excellence in Research at Owen, and the Dean’s Teaching Award for Outstanding Contributions to Teaching and Learning.
Professor Lapré is the Area Coordinator of Operations Management & Quantitative Methods. He is a senior editor for Production and Operations Management and an associate editor for Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports. He has served as a department editor for Production and Operations Management and as an associate editor for Management Science and Manufacturing & Service Operations Management. He has won meritorious service awards from Management Science and Manufacturing & Service Operations Management.
Professor Lapré's research has appeared in California Management Review, Harvard Business Review, Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, Journal of Sports Economics, Management Science, Production and Operations Management, and Queueing Systems. He has co-authored a monograph on Organizational Learning Curves published in Foundations and Trends in Technology, Information, and Operations Management.
Professor Lapré currently teaches Managing Operations in Vanderbilt’s Undergraduate Business Minor, Sports Analytics in the MBA program, and Operations Management in the MMHC program.
Before his doctoral studies at INSEAD, Professor Lapré served as an Officer and Operations Research Analyst in the Royal Dutch Navy. He coached his daughter's Double Dutch jump rope team to back-to-back Grand National Championships in 2018 and 2019.
Professor Lapré's research interests center on improving longitudinal organizational performance. He has studied quality, productivity, customer dissatisfaction, service failure, bankruptcy, race wins, and competitive imbalance. His industry studies include steel-cord manufacturing, U.S. airlines, Formula One racing, the FIFA Women's and Men's World Cup, and the National Football League.
Ph.D., Management, INSEAD (France), 1997
Drs., Operations Research, Erasmus University Rotterdam (Netherlands), 1991
Lapré, M.A., E.M. Palazzolo. 2024. Does draft currency promote competitive balance? An empirical investigation of the National Football League 2002-2021. Journal of Sports Economics, forthcoming.
Lapré, M.A., E.M. Palazzolo. 2023. The evolution of seeding systems and the impact of imbalanced groups in FIFA Men’s World Cup Tournaments 1954-2022. Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, 19(4) 317-322.
Lapré, M.A., C. Cravey. 2022. When success is rare and competitive: Learning from others’ success and my failure at the speed of Formula One. Management Science 68(12) 8741-8756.
Lapré, M.A., E.M. Palazzolo. 2022. Quantifying the impact of imbalanced groups in FIFA Women's World Cup tournaments 1991-2019. Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports 18(3) 197-199.
Alan, Y., M.A. Lapre. 2018.
Investigating operational predictors of future financial distress in the U.S.
airline industry. Production and Operations Management. 27(4) 734-755.
Lapré, M.A. 2011. Reducing customer dissatisfaction: How important is learning to reduce service failure? Production and Operations Management 20(4) 491-507. [Lead article]
Wickham Skinner Award for best paper - Runner-up
Stan Hardy Award for best paper published in OM in 2011
Lapré, M.A., I.M. Nembhard. 2010. Inside the organizational learning curve: Understanding the organizational learning process. Foundations and Trends in Technology, Information and Operations Management 4(1) 1-103.
Lapré, M.A., N. Tsikriktsis. 2006. Organizational learning curves for customer dissatisfaction: Heterogeneity across airlines. Management Science 52(3) 352-366.
Lapre, M.A., G.D. Scudder. 2004. Performance improvement paths in the U.S. airline industry: Linking trade-offs to asset frontiers. Production and Operations Management 13(2) 53-71. [Lead article]
Wickham Skinner Award for best paper
Stan Hardy Award for best paper published in OM in 2004
Lapré, M.A., L.N. Van Wassenhove. 2003. Managing learning curves in factories by creating and transferring knowledge. California Management Review 46(1) 53-71.
Shingo Research Prize
Lapré, M.A., L.N. Van Wassenhove. 2002. Learning across lines: The secret to more efficient factories. Harvard Business Review 80(10) 107-111.
Lapré, M.A., L.N. Van Wassenhove. 2001. Creating and transferring knowledge for productivity improvement in factories. Management Science 47(10) 1311-1325. [Lead article]
Lapré, M.A., A.S. Mukherjee, L.N. Van Wassenhove. 2000. Behind the learning curve: Linking learning activities to waste reduction. Management Science 46(5) 597-611. [Lead article]
Mukherjee, A.S., M.A. Lapré, L.N. Van Wassenhove. 1998. Knowledge driven quality improvement. Management Science 44(11-2) S35-S49.
Lapré, M.A., I.M. Nembhard. 2020. Deliberate learning. L. Argote, J.M. Levine, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Group and Organizational Learning. Oxford University Press, New York, 35-56.
Lapré, M.A. 2011. Inside the learning curve: Opening the black box of the learning curve. M.Y. Jaber, ed. Learning Curves: Theory, Models, and Applications. CRC Press, Boca Raton, 23-35.
Bohn, R.E., M.A. Lapré. 2011. Accelerated learning by experimentation. M.Y. Jaber, ed. Learning Curves: Theory, Models, and Applications. CRC Press, Boca Raton, 191-209.