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on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | Bernd Frick (Paderborn University); Anica Rose (Paderborn University); André Kolle (Paderborn University) |
| Abstract: | We contribute to the inconclusive empirical research on the relationship between team gender diversity and team performance by investigating the returns to gender diversity in academia. Using a unique sample with 164 randomly formed student teams, we show that gender heterogeneity adversely affects team performance in a business strategy game. Both all-female and all-male teams outperform gender-heterogeneous teams in terms of financial success. We find evidence for the detrimental gender diversity effect to increase with task complexity. Our findings suggest that all-men and all-women teams do not differ in their strategic management behavior. |
| Keywords: | Gender; Diversity; Teams; Performance; Business strategy game |
| JEL: | J16 C93 |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pdn:dispap:23&r=hrm |
| By: | Marco Caliendo; Deborah A. Cobb-Clark; Helke Seitz; Arne Uhlendorff |
| Abstract: | This paper extends standard models of work-related training by explicitly incorporating workers' locus of control into the investment decision. Our model both differentiates between general and specific training and accounts for the role of workers and firms in training decisions. Workers with an internal locus of control are predicted to engage in more general training than are their external co-workers because their subjective expected investment returns are higher. In contrast, we expect little relationship between specific training and locus of control because training returns largely accrue to firms rather than workers. We then empirically test the predictions of our model using data from the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP). We find that, consistent with our model, locus of control is related to participation in general but not specific training. Moreover, we provide evidence that locus of control influences participation in general training through its effect on workers' expectations about future wage increases. Specifically, general training is associated with a much larger increase in the expected likelihood of receiving a future pay raise for those with an internal rather than external locus of control, while we do not find any relationship in the case of specific training. Actual post-training wages for those who receive general or specific training do not depend on locus of control. |
| Keywords: | Human Capital Investment, On-the-job Training, Locus of Control, Wage Expectations |
| JEL: | J24 C23 D84 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp890&r=hrm |
| By: | René Böheim; Christoph Freudenthaler (Department of Economic, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria); Mario Lackner |
| Abstract: | We analyze gender differences in risk-taking in high-pressure situations. Using novel data from professional athletes (NBA and WNBA), we find that male teams increase their risktaking towards the end of matches when a successful risky strategy could secure winning the match. Female teams, in contrast, reduce their risk-taking in these situations. The less time left in a match, the larger is the gap. When the costs of an unsuccessful risky strategy are very large (losing the tournament), we find no increase in risk-taking for male teams. |
| Keywords: | Risk-taking, gender differences, tournament incentives |
| JEL: | D81 J16 L83 |
| Date: | 2016–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:econwp:2016_08&r=hrm |
| By: | Sarojini Hirshleifer (Department of Economics, University of California Riverside) |
| Abstract: | One key choice in designing an incentive is whether to reward outcomes directly (outputs) or to reward the actions and behaviors that lead to those outcomes (effort/inputs). I conduct a novel direct test of an input incentive designed to increase student effort against both an output incentive and a control that does not receive an incentive. The interventions were implemented in a classroom-level randomized experiment with school children in India. A math software curriculum is implemented in all classrooms regardless of which activity is incentivized. It includes learning modules (the incentivized input) that are completed throughout a unit as well as a test at the end of the unit (the incentivized output). The two incentives are both piecerate and announced at the beginning of each unit. Students who receive an input incentive perform .57 standard deviations better than the control group on a non-incentivized outcome test. This performance is statistically significantly larger than the impact of the output incentive (which .24 standard deviations and not significant relative to the control). The input incentive is also almost twice as cost-effective as the output incentive. These results provide evidence that there can be large returns to directly inducing student effort in the classroom. The input incentive works better for present-biased students along an incentive-compatible measure of time preferences collected at baseline, which provides evidence to support the hypothesis that more frequent payments can address time inconsistency. This study also provides direct evidence that piecerate input incentives can be more effective than piecerate output incentives. |
| JEL: | C93 D99 I21 M52 O15 |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucr:wpaper:201701&r=hrm |
| By: | T.M. van Huizen; Rob Alessie |
| Abstract: | Job mobility is inherently risky as workers have limited ex ante information about the quality of outside jobs. Using a large longitudinal Dutch dataset, which includes data on risk preferences elicited through (incentivized) experiments, we examine the relation between risk aversion and job mobility. The results for men show that risk averse workers are less likely to move to other jobs. For women, the evidence that risk aversion affects job mobility is weak. Our empirical findings indicate that the negative relation between risk aversion and job mobility is driven by the job acceptance rather than the search effort decision. |
| Keywords: | Job mobility, risk aversion, job search, risk preferences |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:use:tkiwps:1609&r=hrm |
| By: | Dmitry B. Rokhlin; Anatoly Usov |
| Abstract: | We consider a manager, who allocates some fixed total payment amount between $N$ rational agents in order to maximize the aggregate production. The profit of $i$-th agent is the difference between the compensation (reward) obtained from the manager and the production cost. We compare (i) the \emph{normative} compensation scheme, where the manager enforces the agents to follow an optimal cooperative strategy; (ii) the \emph{linear piece rates} compensation scheme, where the manager announces an optimal reward per unit good; (iii) the \emph{proportional} compensation scheme, where agent's reward is proportional to his contribution to the total output. Denoting the correspondent total production levels by $s^*$, $\hat s$ and $\overline s$ respectively, where the last one is related to the unique Nash equilibrium, we examine the limits of the prices of anarchy $\mathscr A_N=s^*/\overline s$, $\mathscr A_N'=\hat s/\overline s$ as $N\to\infty$. These limits are calculated for the cases of identical convex costs with power asymptotics at the origin, and for power costs, corresponding to the Coob-Douglas and generalized CES production functions with decreasing returns to scale. Our results show that asymptotically no performance is lost in terms of $\mathscr A'_N$, and in terms of $\mathscr A_N$ the loss does not exceed $31\%$. |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1701.06038&r=hrm |
| By: | Britta Hoyer; T.M. van Huizen; L.M. Keijzer; T. Rezaei Khavas; S. Rosenkranz; B. Westbrock |
| Abstract: | We study the willingness to compete in a cognitive task among an entire cohort of fresh man business and economics students. Combining data from a lab-in-thefield experiment with university admissions data, we trace the gender gap in competitiveness at different levels of high school performance. Our results confirm that, on average, men choose to compete more often. The gender gap disappears, however, among students with above average high school performance. Female high school top performers are equally competitive as their male counterparts. In fact, the overall gender gap is entirely driven by the group of female high school underperformers who shied away from competition, even when they performed well in our task. Overall, our findings suggest that high school grades are more than just a signal of cognitive abilities, because they seem to influence the receivers selfperception of his or her performance in a competitive environment involved in later on in life. |
| Keywords: | gender gap, competitiveness, performance feedback, high school grades, lab-in-the-field experiment |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:use:tkiwps:1606&r=hrm |
| By: | Aldieri, Luigi; Kotsemir, Maxim; Vinci, Concetto Paolo |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of external research collaborations on the scientific performance of academic institutions. Data are derived from the international SCOPUS database. We consider the number of citations of publications to evaluate university performance in Russia. To this end, we develop a non-overlapping generations model to evidence the theoretical idea of research externalities between academic institutions. Moreover, we implement different empirical models to test for the effect of external scientific collaborations on the institutional research quality. The results confirm an important positive impact of co-authoring process |
| Keywords: | Academic institutions; Productivity; Research externalities |
| JEL: | D20 I21 |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:76408&r=hrm |
| By: | Saki Kishino (Graduate School of Business Administration, Kobe University); Mitsutoshi Hirano (Graduate School of Business Administration, Kobe University) |
| Abstract: | Research in Japan, as elsewhere, has turned to work-life balance as indicating not only the conflict between work and family, but also “a relationship where work and family mutually interact for quality improvements.†Such research, based on the novel concepts of positive spillover, enrichment, and facilitation, contemplates cases in which skills acquired at work are applied in the family, and feelings of significance and fulfillment fostered at work are transmitted to the family. This paper’s research considers significance and fulfillment at work as psychological empowerment; this research inquires as to whether 1) the transformational leadership of a business superior, or below as “supervisor,†affects subordinates’ work-life balance; and whether 2) psychological empowerment has mediated effects that link transformational leadership with said work-life balance. An investigation was made via questionnaire, and it was found that a supervisor’s recognition increases the meaning, i.e., the feeling of significance, of subordinates’ work, and this has positive effects on the realization of a work-life balance. It is asserted that the transformational leadership of a workplace supervisor and psychological empowerment are powerful concepts that have positive effects on employees’ work-life balance. |
| Keywords: | transformational leadership, psychological empowerment, work-life balance |
| Date: | 2016–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kbb:dpaper:2016-07&r=hrm |
| By: | Anica Rose (Paderborn University) |
| Abstract: | While a growing number of empirical studies have analyzed gender differences at various career stages, there is a dearth of studies about formal appraisals of men’s and women’s career potential, i.e., their promotability. In this paper, I will empirically analyze whether female employees’ promotability assessments are systematically inferior to their equally qualified male colleagues. In doing so, I use detailed personnel data of a large global German company that has a formal promotability evaluation process in place. I consider a wide range of contextual variables that have been neglected in the past, such as information on employees’ demographic (i.e., gender, age, tenure) and job-related characteristics (i.e., pay grade, working hours, performance assessments), additional information on the employees’ direct supervisors, and the composition of the department. I find women’s likelihood of receiving an evaluation that qualifies them as promotable to be around 5 percentage points lower than for their male counterparts – the probability of receiving an outstanding assessment being only 20 percent per se. The gap is even more pronounced at around the age of 30, i.e., the average childbearing age in Germany. Furthermore, gender gaps persist at managerial levels, which points to the existence of systematic gender differences in formal promotability evaluation processes. |
| Keywords: | Gender, discrimination, promotion, promotability rating, field study |
| JEL: | J16 J71 M51 |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pdn:dispap:22&r=hrm |