- 04 Mar 2019
- Working Paper Summaries
The Revision Bias
Companies often release revised editions of books, director’s cuts of movies, and technological updates, on the assumption that revising products and services leads to better outcomes. Nine studies, however, document the revision bias: the tendency to prefer things that were revised, regardless of whether the revised versions are objectively better than their predecessors.
- 27 Feb 2019
- Working Paper Summaries
Judgment Aggregation in Creative Production: Evidence from the Movie Industry
Selecting early-stage ideas in creative industries is challenging because consumer taste is hard to predict and the quantity to sift through is large. Using The Black List that ranks scripts annually based on nominations from film executives, this study shows that aggregating expert opinions helps reduce quality uncertainty and can influence high-budget production.
- 07 Feb 2019
- Working Paper Summaries
Immigrant Networking and Collaboration: Survey Evidence from CIC
This study compares United States-born and immigrant entrepreneurs’ use of networking opportunities provided by CIC, the former Cambridge Innovation Center. Immigrants clearly take more advantage of networking opportunities at CIC, especially around the exchange of advice. It remains to be seen whether this generates long-term performance advantages for immigrants.
- 05 Feb 2019
- Working Paper Summaries
Stereotypes and Belief Updating
Increasing evidence demonstrates that stereotyped beliefs drive key economic decisions. This paper shows the significant role of self-stereotyping in predicting beliefs about one’s own ability. Stereotypes do not just affect beliefs about ability when information is scarce. In fact, stereotypes color the way information is incorporated into beliefs, perpetuating initial biases.
- 27 Dec 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
Team Learning Capabilities: A Meso Model of Sustained Innovation and Superior Firm Performance
In strategic management research, the dynamic capabilities framework enables a “helicopter view” of how firms achieve sustainable competitive advantage. This paper focuses on the critical role of work teams, arguing that managers must leverage the knowledge generated by teams to support innovation and strategic change. It matches types of team learning to innovation activities.
- 05 Dec 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
The Salary Taboo: Privacy Norms and the Diffusion of Information
Barriers to the diffusion of salary information have implications for a wide range of labor market phenomena. This study of employees of a real organization shows that individuals significantly misinterpret their peers’ salaries, partly due to pervasive preferences for concealing own salary, and a potentially strategic decision of high earners to withhold their personal information.
- 08 Nov 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
Arbitration with Uninformed Consumers
Using data on securities disputes, this study of information advantages in consumer arbitration finds that industry-friendly arbitrators are 40 percent more likely than consumer-friendly arbitrators to be selected to take on arbitration cases. Limiting respondents’ and claimants’ inputs over the selection process could improve outcomes for consumers.
- 08 Nov 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
When Harry Fired Sally: The Double Standard in Punishing Misconduct
Despite committing misconduct less often and less severely than men, female advisers in the financial adviser industry face more severe punishment in the labor market, a finding strongly correlated with the gender composition of the managerial team. A similar punishment gap and mitigating factors affect ethnic minority men.
- 17 Sep 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
The Impact of Penalties for Wrong Answers on the Gender Gap in Test Scores
Multiple-choice questions on standardized tests are widely seen as objective measures of student ability, but the common practice of assessing penalties for wrong answers may generate gender bias. This study documents the impact of a policy change that removed penalties for wrong answers on the national college entry exam in Chile. This simple change reduced the gender gap in test performance by 9 percent.
- 07 Aug 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
Gifts of the Immigrants, Woes of the Natives: Lessons from the Age of Mass Migration
Investigating the economic and political effects of immigration across US cities between 1910 and 1930, this paper finds that political opposition to immigration can arise even when immigrants bring widespread economic benefits. The paper provides evidence that cultural differences between immigrants and natives were responsible, at least in part, for natives’ anti-immigration reactions.
- 11 Jul 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
Channeled Attention and Stable Errors
As humans we are surprisingly good at neglecting unexpected information that conflicts with what we “know” to be true. This paper develops a framework for predicting when we are more likely to “get a clue” despite this cognitive barrier to discovering our own mistakes.
- 25 May 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
Trust and Disintermediation: Evidence from an Online Freelance Marketplace
Intermediaries such as brokers, distributors, and agents all face a risk of disintermediation, when two sides circumvent the intermediary and thus avoid the intermediary’s fees. This study of a large online freelance marketplace finds that enhanced user trust increases this risk, alongside other contributing factors like being geographically near one another, having easily divisible jobs, and clients themselves having high ratings.
- 29 Apr 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
Analyzing the Aftermath of a Compensation Reduction
This study of the effects of compensation cuts in a large sales organization provides a unique lens for analyzing the link between compensation schemes, worker performance, and turnover.
- 27 Apr 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
Is Overconfidence a Motivated Bias? Experimental Evidence
People are most at risk of making overly positive self-assessments when their assessment criteria are not clearly defined. Yet, even within ambiguous domains, providing clearly defined criteria for what makes a productive employee, an effective leader, and an efficient team, may help people better calibrate their self-perceptions with reality.
- 06 Feb 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
Subjectivity in Tournaments: Implicit Rewards and Penalties and Subsequent Performance
Analyzing data from a Chinese manufacturing company, this study explores side effects of subjective performance evaluations in a setting where workers are rewarded based on performance rankings and subject to both rewards and penalties. Among other contributions the paper highlights factors that could impact the overall effectiveness of incentive systems.
- 02 Feb 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
Last Place Aversion in Queues
While no one likes standing in line for service, being last intensifies the pain of waiting, doubles the probability of switching queues, and quadruples the chances of leaving the line altogether. Many service settings could be improved if managers actively mitigated last place aversion.
- 22 Jan 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
When Gender Discrimination Is Not About Gender
Gender discrimination in a typically male workplace is not necessarily driven by misogyny. Rather, employers are less willing to hire applicants associated with a lower performing group-even if that group is defined by a demographic characteristic other than gender.
- 03 Jan 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
Framing Violence, Finding Peace
Using data collected in a 2016 survey of 1,120 Syrian refugees in Turkey, this study finds that 1) framing civilians’ wartime ordeal as suffering or sacrifice influences their attitudes about ending the conflict, and 2) the identity of who advocates for peace affects civilians’ attitude about supporting it. These results suggest new possibilities for reconciliation processes.
- 14 Dec 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
Personality Traits of Entrepreneurs: A Review of Recent Literature
This paper brings together recent findings in the academic literature on the prevalence of various personality traits among entrepreneurs and their impact on venture performance. It focuses on three themes: (1) personality traits of entrepreneurs and how they compare to other groups; (2) attitudes towards risk that entrepreneurs display; and (3) overall goals and aspirations that entrepreneurs bring to their pursuits.
Mitigating the Negative Effects of Customer Anxiety Through Access to Human Contact
Firms increasingly deploy self-service technologies (SSTs) to manage customer interfaces that are inherently stressful. For example, patients may be asked to use kiosks to check themselves into hospitals. This study finds that customer anxiety during SST transactions can reduce customers’ trust in the service provider. Operational design choices may help.