SPEAKER

Dr. Victoria (Shu) Zhang
Postdoctoral Associate
School of Management
Yale University

ABSTRACT

Why do non-compliant practices persist in the face of regulations? This paper unpacks variations in regulatory compliance by investigating how social networks and regulations work in tandem. Using a longitudinal network consisting of 312,351 physicians from 2015 to 2017 and a triple-differences design, I find that the effects of regulations are dampened in networks with non-complying peers but amplified in networks with compliant peers. Moreover, distinct network typologies support compliance and non-compliance. Non-compliance is more likely to persist among centrally embedded professionals surrounded by non-complying peers – consistent with a “safety in numbers” mechanism. However, attentiveness to compliant peers did not vary by network centrality. Peer influence also varies by tenure. Older professionals are more attentive to peers in adopting compliant practices. Importantly, the introduction of the regulations also shifted the peer influence process by activating stronger influence from compliant peers. This paper contributes to the intersection of regulations and social networks literature by showing that peer influence and regulations work in tandem to drive variations in compliance. The implications are three-fold. First, non-compliance is sustained in the presence of deviant peers. Social reinforcement from compliant peers is key to realizing regulatory efforts. Second, regulations activate stronger peer influence, pushing prior “holdouts” into complying. Finally, this work advances our understanding of how different network typologies perpetuate distinct network-based mechanisms of influence. The findings help explain pockets of regulatory compliance and resistance and hold implications for curtailing professional deviance.

SPEAKER

Dr. Brian Wu
Associate Professor of Strategy
Stephen M. Ross School of Business
University of Michigan

ABSTRACT

Using market-frictions based logic, we develop an analytical model that examines how online platforms can govern opportunistic behavior of offline service providers, thus allowing market forces to promote the general welfare. Empowered by information technologies, online platforms enable service providers to offer customized services that consumers have increasingly desired. Along with its tremendous value-creation potential, offering customized services encourages greater opportunism from the service providers. While reputation-based mechanisms have been proposed to foster trust, their effectiveness may be limited by excessive competition. To address this problem, we propose a novel platform design where the platform may induce a welfare-enhancing equilibrium where (i) the service providers on the platform enjoy higher capacity utilization than those outside and are motivated to exert effort by future concerns, and (ii) customers prefer service providers on the platform and are willing to pay a premium. Further, we evaluate the implications of our proposed approach on platform profitability by comparing different payment schemes, and generalize the model regarding imperfect monitoring signals and the entry and exit of service providers. Our work sheds new light on how platform design can help reduce market frictions in economic exchanges and potentially shape the evolution of industries.

Speaker:

Prof. Raffaella Sadun
Professor of Business Management, Strategy Unit, Harvard Business School

The Demand for Executive Skills (with Joe Fuller, Stephen Hansen and Tejas Ramdas)

Abstract:

We use a large and unique corpus of job specifications for C-suite positions to document and explain heterogeneity across firms in the skills demanded for high-level executives.  A novel classification algorithm maps the text for each executive search into six separate skill clusters, all of which show considerable variation.  Patterns in the \textit{social skills} cluster are particularly striking: it features large growth in the sample, is the relatively most common cluster in CEO searches, and has a large sample variance.  We propose a mechanism whereby social skills faciliate the exchange of problems within firms; construct proxies for the need for such coordination; and show these correlate with the presence of social skills language.  These correlations do not appear for the other skill clusters.  The results suggest that the varied structure of firms induces demand for different executive skills.

Speaker:

Dr. Danielle Li
Associate Professor, Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Strategic Management
MIT Sloan

Abstract:

This paper views hiring as a contextual bandit problem: to find the best workers over time, firms must balance “exploitation” (selecting from groups with proven track records) with “exploration” (selecting from under-represented groups to learn about quality). Yet modern hiring algorithms, based on “supervised learning” approaches, are designed solely for exploitation. Instead, we build a resume screening algorithm that values exploration by evaluating candidates according to their statistical upside potential. Using data from professional services recruiting within a Fortune 500 firm, we show that this approach improves the quality (as measured by eventual hiring rates) of candidates selected for an interview, while also increasing demographic diversity, relative to the firm’s existing practices. The same is not true for traditional supervised learning based algorithms, which improve hiring rates but select far fewer Black and Hispanic applicants. In an extension, we show that exploration-based algorithms are also able to learn more effectively about simulated changes in applicant hiring potential over time. Together, our results highlight the importance of incorporating exploration in developing decision-making algorithms that are potentially both more efficient and equitable.

Speaker:

Dr. Claudine Gartenberg
Assistant Professor of Management
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Abstract:

Analyzing data from approximately 1.5 million employees across 1,108 established public and private US companies, we find that employee beliefs about their firm’s purpose is weaker in public companies. Among public companies, purpose is higher for firms with long-term investors and lower for firms with high hedge fund ownership. These patterns are most pronounced within the salaried middle and hourly ranks, rather than senior executives. These differences in purpose across firms can be attributed, in part, to differences in the background of the CEOs and reward structures within the companies. Our findings are consistent with higher owner commitment, and the corresponding policies that arise with this higher commitment, are associated with a stronger sense of purpose inside organizations.

Speaker:

Dr. Allison S. Gabriel
Associate Professor and Robbins Fellow
Eller College of Management
The University of Arizona

Abstract:

According to self-regulation theories, affect plays a crucial role in driving goal-directed behaviors. Yet, past work presents inconsistent results regarding the effects of positive and negative affect, with theory heavily relying on understanding the separate, unique effects of each affective experience. In the current investigation, we integrate tenets of emotional ambivalence with self-regulation theories to examine how the conjoint experience of positive and negative affect yields benefits for behavioral regulation. We test these ideas within a self-regulatory context that has frequently studied the possible benefits of affect—the job search. Specifically, across two within-person investigations, we explore how emotional ambivalence relates to job search success (i.e., interview invitations, job offers) via job search self-regulatory processes (i.e., metacognitive strategies, effort). To capture emotional ambivalence during job search, we utilize a person-centered analytic technique known as multilevel latent profile analysis (MLPA). Results illustrate that the subsequent week (i.e., at time t + 1; Study 1) and month (Study 2) after job seekers experience emotional ambivalence (i.e., higher levels of positive and negative affect at time t), they receive more job offers via increased search efforts and interview invitations. Theoretical and practical implications for studying emotional ambivalence in organizational scholarship are discussed.

Speaker:

Dr. Ivy Dang

Assistant Professor of Marketing
HKU Business School , The University of Hong Kong

Abstract:

Using data on user search and matching histories from an online dating site, we study the role of information in matching markets, emphasizing how partial or full information about the other side influences the final matching outcomes. We find that more information about the other side may make matching outcomes worse. This effect is mainly driven by the misaligned preferences (i.e., preference mismatch) between the two sides. Our findings suggest there exists an optimal amount of information that the platform should provide to each side before a match is proposed. A consumer theory model is developed to rationalize the behavior and shed light on optimal information provision strategies.

Speaker:

Dr. Alan P. Kwan

Assistant Professor of Finance
HKU Business School , The University of Hong Kong

Abstract:

This paper introduces a measure of work-from-home activity using a novel dataset of firm-mapped internet content consumption covering tens of thousands of business and consumer interest websites. I build a classifier of incoming traffic into residential, business, VPN and mobile networks. Validating this classification, I find remote IPs spike in traffic in the middle of March, the share of remote IP traffic in a county exhibit a high, 0.765 covariance with mobile phone data on workplace visits, and is higher in firms who ex-ante had better remote IT and in knowledge-intensive industries. Studying organizational factors affecting WFH, I find a strong role of social interactions. I document a lower shift toward remote work in response to local social distancing or Covid-cases in organizations with stronger social connections and less generalist workers, in firms with stronger culture (especially teamwork culture), and in areas with more social capital. If local cases or social distancing comprise exogenous variation in WFH, I find firms spend more time on business relevant reading, but less on researching new topics. These findings provide suggestive evidence for the ostensible tradeoff WFH poses between productivity and creativity.

Speaker:

Dr. Jiyin Cao

Assistant Professor, Management
Stony Brook University

Abstract:

Having friends in high places is often considered necessary to achieve success. Indeed, connections with upper-class individuals have been identified as a key component of social capital. Despite the tangible benefits upper-class network contacts can offer, we find that these networks have a dark side: the increased potential for unethical behavior, over and above one’s own social class. We propose that because upper-class individuals are less constrained by social norms, individuals with many upper-class contacts will perceive their network as having looser social norms. As a result, individuals with upper-class network ties will view morality as more relative and will be more likely to engage in unethical behavior. To test our core hypothesis that having upper-class contacts increases unethical behavior, we conducted five multi-method (archival, field, quasi-experimental, and experimental) studies involving a range of samples (CEOs, nationally representative adults, student roommates) in multiple cultures. Overall, the current research takes a property of networks (its class composition), links it to perceptions of that network (the perceived norm looseness of one’s network contacts) and connects it to a psychological mindset (moral relativism) that ultimately affects unethical behavior. These findings demonstrate that the benefits of social capital also carry a moral cost.

Speaker:

Dr. Rembrand Koning

Assistant Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School
Harvard University

Abstract:

Recent field experiments demonstrate that advice, mentorship, and feedback from randomly assigned peers improve entrepreneurial performance. These results raise a natural question: what is preventing entrepreneurs and managers from forming these peer connections themselves? We argue that entrepreneurs may be under-networked because they lack the necessary social skills—the ability to communicate effectively and interact collaboratively with new acquaintances—that allow them to match efficiently with knowledgeable peers. We use a field experiment in the context of a business training program to test if a short social skills training module improves the number and complementarity of peers that participants choose to learn from. We find that entrepreneurs who were exposed to the social skills training formed 50% more relationships with peers. These relationships exhibited more matching based on managerial skill and were more ethnically diverse. Finally, the training also increased entrepreneurs’ monthly profits by approximately 20%. Our findings suggest that social skills help entrepreneurs build relationships that create value for both themselves and their peers.