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on Sports and Economics |
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Issue of 2009‒03‒22
three papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | Rob Simmons; Leo Kahane; Neil Longley |
| Abstract: | We use a publicly available data set drawn from the professional sport industry to test for the impacts of coworker heterogeneity on firm performance. We focus particularly on the National Hockey League (NHL). NHL teams are truly global firms - they employ workers (players) from a variety of non-English-speaking countries, all of whom are integrated into a single work group (i.e. team). Players from different countries not only bring different languages and cultures, but also bring different playing styles - styles which must be effectively integrated into a cohesive playing unit. We use a panel data set that spans the seasons 2001-02 to 2007-08, and we control for a wide variety of variables that may affect a team's output. The question we pose is: all else equal, does the specific nationality mix on a team matter? In other words, for a given number of foreign players on a team, is it better to have all foreign players from a single country, or should teams attempt to employ foreign players from a variety of countries? Our results indicate that teams that are made up of mostly homogeneous European players appear to gain an advantage in team performance. Also, it appears that NHL teams perform better when their European players tend to come from the same country, rather than being spread across many European countries. We suggest that firms need to be cognizant of the way in which they diversify since the gains from diversity may be greatest when the foreign component of the workforce has, within itself, a higher degree of homogeneity. |
| Keywords: | Coworker; Heterogeneity; Diversity; National Hockey League; Europeans |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lan:wpaper:005934&r=spo |
| By: | Marie-Pierre Dargnies (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I, EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of the possibility to enter a tournament as a team on the gender gap in tournament entry. While a large and significant gender gap in entry in the individual tournament is found in line with the literature, no gender gap is found in entry in the team tournament. While women do not choose to enter the tournament significantly more often when it is team-based, men enter significantly less as part of a team than alone. Changes in overconfidence as well as in risk, ambiguity and feedback aversion, the difference in men and women's taste for the uncertainty on their teammate's ability all account for a part of the disappearance of the gender gap in tournament entry. A remaining explanation is that being part of a team changes men and women's taste for performing in a competitive environment. |
| Keywords: | Gender gap, tournament, teams. |
| Date: | 2009–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00367702_v1&r=spo |
| By: | Lawrence M. Kahn (Cornell University) |
| Abstract: | This Chapter reviews evidence on discrimination in basketball, primarily examining studies on race but with some discussion of gender as well. I focus on discrimination in pay, hiring, and retention against black NBA players and coaches and pay disparities by gender among college coaches. There was much evidence for each of these forms of discrimination against black NBA players in the 1980s. However, there appears to be less evidence of racial compensation, hiring and retention discrimination against black players in the 1990s and early 2000s than the 1980s. This apparent decline is consistent with research on customer discrimination in the NBA: in the 1980s, there was abundant evidence of fan preference for white players; however, since the 1980s, these preferences seem much weaker. There appears to be little evidence of pay, hiring or retention discrimination against black NBA coaches, and while male college basketball coaches outearn females, this gap is accounted for by differences in revenues and coaches’ work histories. There is some dispute over whether these revenue differences are themselves the result of employer discrimination. |
| Keywords: | discrimination, race, gender, basketball |
| JEL: | J71 L83 |
| Date: | 2009–02–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qut:auncer:2009_44&r=spo |