nep-hrm New Economics Papers
on Human Capital and Human Resource Management
Issue of 2020‒02‒03
eight papers chosen by
Patrick Kampkötter
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen

  1. Performance effects of setting a high reference point for peer-performance comparison By Eyring, Henry; Narayanan, V.G.
  2. How Do Employers Use Compensation History?: Evidence From a Field Experiment By Moshe A. Barach; John J. Horton
  3. Optimal contracts with randomly arriving tasks By Daniel Bird; Alexander Frug
  4. The Economic Preferences of Cooperative Managers By Alves, Guillermo; Blanchard, Pablo; Burdin, Gabriel; Chávez, Mariana; Dean, Andrés
  5. The Emergence of Procyclical Fertility: The Role of Gender Differences in Employment Risk By Sena Coskun; Husnu Dalgic
  6. Are groups really more dishonest than individuals? By Castillo, Geoffrey; Choo, Lawrence; Grimm, Veronika
  7. Factors Affecting Executive Compensation By Ivana Marinovic Matovic
  8. Can Female Doctors Cure the Gender STEMM Gap? Evidence from Randomly Assigned General Practitioners By Riise, Julie; Willage, Barton; Willén, Alexander

  1. By: Eyring, Henry; Narayanan, V.G.
    Abstract: We conduct a field experiment, based on a registered report accepted by the Journal of Accounting Research, to test performance effects of setting a high reference point for peer-performance comparison. Relative to providing the median as a reference point for online students to compare themselves to, providing the top quartile: damps performance for those below the median; boosts performance for those between the median and top quartile; and, in the case of outcome but not process comparison, boosts performance for those above the top quartile. We do not find that either reference point yields a greater average performance effect. However, providing the more effective reference point in each partition of initial performance yields a 40% greater performance effect than providing either reference point uniformly. Students access the online courses intermittently over the span of a year. Our effects derive from small portions of our treatment groups—5% in the case of process comparison and 26% in the case of outcome comparison—who accessed treatment and who were, on average, more active leading up to and during our intervention
    Keywords: Relative performance information; reference points; performance; social comparison
    JEL: C93 D91 I21 M41
    Date: 2018–05–30
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:86732&r=all
  2. By: Moshe A. Barach; John J. Horton
    Abstract: We report the results of a field experiment in which treated employers could not observe the compensation history of their job applicants. Treated employers responded by evaluating more applicants, and evaluating those applicants more intensively. They also responded by changing what kind of workers they evaluated: treated employers evaluated workers with 5% lower past average wages and hired workers with 13% lower past average wages. Conditional upon bargaining, workers hired by treated employers struck better wage bargains for themselves.
    JEL: J0 J23 J48 J7
    Date: 2020–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26627&r=all
  3. By: Daniel Bird; Alexander Frug
    Abstract: Workers rarely perform exactly the same tasks every day. Instead, their daily workload may change randomly over time to comply with the uctuating needs of the organiza- tion where they are employed. In this paper, we show that this typical randomness in workplaces has a striking e ect on the structure of long-term employment contracts. In particular, simple intertemporal variability in the worker's tasks is sucient to gen- erate a rich promotion-based dynamics in which, occasionally, the worker receives a (permanent) wage raise and his future work requirements are reduced.
    Keywords: Dynamic contracting, random tasks, seniority, promotion.
    JEL: D86 M51
    Date: 2020–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upf:upfgen:1690&r=all
  4. By: Alves, Guillermo; Blanchard, Pablo; Burdin, Gabriel; Chávez, Mariana; Dean, Andrés
    Abstract: A growing body of research has been investigating the role of management practices and managerial behaviour in conventional private firms and public sector organizations. However, little is known about managers’ behavioural profile in noninvestorowned firms. This paper aims to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive behavioural characterization of managers employed in cooperatives. We gathered incentive-compatible measures of risk preferences, time preferences, reciprocity, altruism, and trust from 196 Uruguayan managers (half of them employed in worker cooperatives) and 92 first-year undergraduate students. To do this, we conducted a high-stakes lab-in-thefield experiment in which participants played a series of online experimental games and made incentivised decisions.
    Keywords: Competitividad, Investigación socioeconómica, Liderazgo, Productividad,
    Date: 2019
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dbl:dblwop:1457&r=all
  5. By: Sena Coskun; Husnu Dalgic
    Abstract: Fertility in the US exhibits a procyclical pattern since 80s. We argue that gender differences in employment risk leads to procyclical fertility; men mostly work in volatile and procyclical industries whereas women are likely to work in relatively stable and countercyclical industries. Our quantitative framework features a general equlibrium OLG model with endogeneous fertility and human capital choice and it shows that current gender industry composition in the US data accounts for all of this procyclicality. Moreover, we argue that gender income ratio (female to male) is higher in bad times which tilts the quality-quantity trade-off towards quality.
    Keywords: fertility, industry cyclicality, industry gender segregation, gender income gap, quality-quantity trade-off
    JEL: E24 E32 J11 J13 J16 J21 J24
    Date: 2020–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2020_142&r=all
  6. By: Castillo, Geoffrey; Choo, Lawrence; Grimm, Veronika
    Abstract: Groups are often found to be more rational than individuals. In lying games, this implies that groups are more dishonest. We scrutinise this conclusion in a setup where there are true moral concerns associated with dishonest behaviour. In contrast to prior studies, we do not find groups to be more dishonest than individuals when a passive third party, such as a charity, is harmed by the dishonest behaviour. Instead, we find that groups can help to moderate the extent of dishonest behaviour.
    Keywords: dishonesty,group decisions,communication,social norms
    JEL: C91 C92 D71
    Date: 2020
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:iwqwdp:012020&r=all
  7. By: Ivana Marinovic Matovic (Addiko Bank AD Beograd, Serbia)
    Abstract: Executive managers represent the smallest percentage of employees in a business organization, but also the most important. An ideal executive compensation strategy ensures retaining and attracting the best talents, while minimizing the fluctuations. Executive compensation consists of basic pay, short and long-term incentives, benefits and perquisites. Since the 1970s, executive compensation started and continued to grow exponentially. The compensation ratio between executive manager and average employee has increased year by year. For these reasons, special attention of the scientific and general public is paid to the executive compensation, and to the factors affecting its level and structure. The paper provides an overview of factors that may influence the executive compensation, while seeking to determine the executive compensation strategy design, that supports the long-term business objectives. The paper analyzes the effect of organizational size, growth opportunities and risk, ownership and capital structure, as well as manager age, on the level and structure of executive compensation.
    Keywords: executive compensation, executive compensation components, executive compensation factors, salary, incentives
    Date: 2019–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:ipaper:002im&r=all
  8. By: Riise, Julie (University of Bergen, Department of Economics); Willage, Barton (Department of Economics, Louisiana State University); Willén, Alexander (Department of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics)
    Abstract: We use random assignment of general practitioners (GPs) to provide the first evidence on the effects of female role models in childhood on the long-run educational outcomes of girls. We find that girls who are exposed to female GPs in childhood are significantly more likely to sort into traditionally male-dominated education programs in high school, most notably STEMM. These effects persist as females enter college and select majors. We also find strong positive effects on educational performance throughout their academic careers, suggesting that female role models in childhood improve education matches of girls. The effects we identify are significantly larger for high-ability girls with low educated parents, suggesting that female role models may improve intergenerational mobility and narrow the gifted gap for disadvantaged girls.
    Keywords: Role Models; STEMM; Gender Gap
    JEL: I20 I24 J24
    Date: 2019–10–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:bergec:2019_003&r=all

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