nep-spo 2023-02-27 papers

on Sports and Economics

Issue of 2023‒02‒27
two papers chosen by
Humberto Barreto
DePauw University

Cultural homophily and collaboration in superstar teams By Békés, Gábor; Ottaviano, Gianmarco I. P.
Within-season dismissals of football managers: evidence from the French Ligue 1 By Luc Arrondel; Cédric Zimmer; Richard Duhautois

Cultural homophily and collaboration in superstar teams

By:	Békés, Gábor; Ottaviano, Gianmarco I. P.
Abstract:	One may reasonably think that cultural preferences affect collaboration in multinational teams in general, but not in superstar teams of professionals at the top of their industry. We reject this hypothesis by creating and analyzing an exhaustive dataset recording all 10.7 million passes by 7 thousand professional European football players from 138 countries fielded by all 154 teams competing in the top 5 men leagues over 8 sporting seasons, together with full information on players' and teams' characteristics. We use a discrete choice model of players' passing behavior as a baseline to separately identify collaboration due to cultural preferences (`choice homophily') from collaboration due to opportunities (`induced homophily'). The outcome we focus on is the `pass rate', defined as the count of passes from a passer to a receiver relative to the passer's total passes when both players are fielded together in a half-season. We find strong evidence of choice homophily. Relative to the baseline, player pairs of same culture have a 2.42 percent higher pass rate due to choice, compared with a 6.16 percent higher pass rate due to both choice and opportunity. This shows that choice homophily based on culture is pervasive and persistent even in teams of very high skill individuals with clear common objectives and aligned incentives, who are involved in interactive tasks that are well defined, readily monitored and not particularly language intensive.
Keywords:	organizations; teams; culture; homophily; diversity; language; globalization; big data; panel data; sport
JEL:	J1
Date:	2022–10–07
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:117993&r=spo

Within-season dismissals of football managers: evidence from the French Ligue 1

By:	Luc Arrondel (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Cédric Zimmer (LIRSA - Laboratoire interdisciplinaire de recherche en sciences de l'action - CNAM - Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers [CNAM] - HESAM - HESAM Université - Communauté d'universités et d'établissements Hautes écoles Sorbonne Arts et métiers université, CEET - Centre d'études de l'emploi et du travail - CNAM - Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers [CNAM] - HESAM - HESAM Université - Communauté d'universités et d'établissements Hautes écoles Sorbonne Arts et métiers université - M.E.N.E.S.R. - Ministère de l'Education nationale, de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche - Ministère du Travail, de l'Emploi et de la Santé); Richard Duhautois (LIRSA - Laboratoire interdisciplinaire de recherche en sciences de l'action - CNAM - Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers [CNAM] - HESAM - HESAM Université - Communauté d'universités et d'établissements Hautes écoles Sorbonne Arts et métiers université)
Abstract:	There have been many studies of the impact of manager turnover on club performance, especially in European leagues. Our paper examines the impact of within-season manager change on club performance using information from the French Ligue 1 over the period 1998-2018. The clubs that change their manager have different characteristics from clubs that do not. Some may be observed (as points before dismissal), and others remain unobservable in the data. We use an empirical method that takes observable differences between clubs into account (through exact matching) and corrects for unobserved characteristics (through difference-indifferences). Our results show that the overall effects of a change of manager on team performance are insignificant even if we take into account some characteristics of the coaches.
Abstract:	De nombreuses études ont analysé l'impact du changement d'entraîneurs sur les performances des clubs, notamment dans les championnats européens. Nous utilisons ici les informations provenant de la Ligue 1 sur la période 1998-2018. Les clubs français qui changent d'entraîneur ont des caractéristiques différentes des équipes qui ne le font pas. Certaines peuvent être observées (comme les points avant le licenciement), d'autres restent inobservables. Notre méthode empirique prend en compte les différences observables entre les clubs par appariement exact et corrige des caractéristiques non observées par doubles différences. Nos résultats montrent que les effets d'un changement d'entraîneur sur la performance de l'équipe ne sont pas significatifs, et ce même si l'on tient compte de certaines caractéristiques des coachs.
Keywords:	Football manager dismissals, Leadership, Team performance, Exact matching, French Ligue
Date:	2022
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-03917462&r=spo

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