Inna Smirnova

Organizational Scientist & Postdoctoral Fellow @ UMSI


Hello and welcome!

I am currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Michigan School of Information (UMSI). I am also affiliated with the Center for Ethics, Society, and Computing (ESC). In my research, I provide multiple pathways to explore how collaborative innovations unfold and how high-knowledge innovation teams can be influenced to become the most productive. In particular, I focus on helping organizations understand the effects of different organizational design levers on individual-level motivation and behavior that, in turn, shape macro-level team output and help to improve the direction of collaborative innovation. I use online communities, including GitHub and Stack Overflow, and scientific teams as my research sites, and econometric analysis of archival data and experiments as my research methods.

I received my Ph.D. in Strategic Management from the University of Vienna in November 2020. I hold a master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Helsinki (2014), along with a master's degree in Management from Kazan Federal University (2014). My bachelor's degree is from Kazan Federal University in Information Technologies (2012). 

I love traveling. Soul destinationItaly,  always! Besides, I enjoy painting, hiking, playing tennis, listening to jazz music, and learning new languages.

Contact me at 


Download my full CV (last updated August 2023)