Managing It All
The Effects of Digital Surveillance and Managerial Clarity on Performance
Namrata Kala & Elizabeth Lyons
NBER Working Paper, January 2025
Abstract:
How managers frame the adoption of organizational practices may impact the returns to such practices, but managerial justification is often correlated with the use of particular practices or other dimensions of managerial quality. Using a randomized control trial, we study how the causal impacts of a frequently used monitoring management practice for remote work employers -- digital worker surveillance -- varies by randomly allocated justification for its use. In an online labor market, we divide workers into low and high-productivity performers, and randomize both whether surveillance is used and whether its use is justified based on the workers’ baseline productivity. We find that digital surveillance does not have significant effects on worker performance on average, but that not explaining the presence or elimination of digital surveillance based on worker performance significantly reduces worker output. Our results demonstrate a nuanced relationship between monitoring and worker performance that depends on how monitoring is rationalized to workers.
Substitution between CSR Activities: Evidence from Hiring and Mistreating Unauthorized Workers and Pollution
Ying Huang, Ningzhong Li & Xiaolu Zhou
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We argue substitution can exist among CSR investments and exogenously increasing one CSR investment could lead to a decrease in another CSR investment. We provide evidence using the U.S. states' staggered adoptions of E-Verify mandates, which curtail a labor-related social bad by reducing the hiring of unauthorized workers and related workplace abuses. We find the mandate leads to an increase in plant-level pollution, an environmental social bad, and the effect is stronger when the mandate applies to more employers, for plants in states with more unauthorized workers in the labor force, and for plants with jobs that are inherently more hazardous.
How Much Do We Trust Remote Managers? Examining Follower Trust, Construal, and Performance
Timothy Golden & Michael Ford
Personnel Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
With the widespread shift to remote and hybrid work, followers of leaders who telework are more distant from their leaders and may develop different judgments of their leader's trustworthiness. Drawing upon construal level theory (CLT), we investigate the effect of a leader's teleworking on trust followers have in their leader and suggest that higher level construals associated with the leader's distance help explain this effect. Moreover, we investigate the moderating role of a leader's monitoring behavior. Study 1, a longitudinal field study using matched data from 314 followers, 108 leaders, and 218 projects in a large corporation, finds leader teleworking is negatively associated with follower affect-based trust, which in turn is associated with project financial performance. Study 2, a 3-wave study of employed adults (n = 262), finds evidence that follower construal mediates the relationship between the extent of leader teleworking and follower trust. Study 3, a daily study of employed adults (n = 98) conducted over 10 consecutive workdays, finds support for these effects at a daily and between-person level. Across the three studies, results indicate the extent of leader teleworking is negatively associated with follower trust in the leader through higher level follower construal, with leader monitoring exacerbating this effect.
Methodological Pluralism and Innovation in Data-Driven Organizations
Ryan Allen & Rory McDonald
Administrative Science Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Prior research on data-driven innovation, which assumes quantitative analysis as the default, suggests a tradeoff: Organizations that rely heavily on data-driven analysis tend to produce familiar, incremental innovations with moderate commercial potential, at the expense of risky, novel breakthroughs or hit products. We argue that this tradeoff does not hold when quantitative and qualitative analysis are used together. Organizations that substantially rely on both types of analysis in the new-product innovation process will benefit by triangulating quantifiably verifiable demand (which prompts more moderate successes but fewer hits) with qualitatively discernible potential (which prompts more novelty but more flops). Although relying primarily on either type of analysis has little impact on overall new-product sales due to the countervailing strengths and weaknesses inherent in each, together they have a complementary positive effect on new-product sales as each compensates for the weaknesses of the other. Drawing on a unique dataset of 3,768 new-product innovations from NielsenIQ linked to employee résumé job descriptions from 55 consumer-product firms, we find support for our hypothesis. The highest sales and number of hits were observed in organizations that demonstrated methodological pluralism: substantial reliance on both types of analyses. Further mixed-method research examining related outcomes -- hits, flops, and novelty -- corroborates our theory and confirms its underlying mechanisms.
The number of exceptional people: Fewer than 85 per 1 million across key traits
Gilles Gignac
Personality and Individual Differences, February 2025
Abstract:
Cognitive biases can lead to overestimating the expected prevalence of exceptional multi-talented candidates, leading to potential dissatisfaction in recruitment contexts. This study aims to accurately estimate the odds of finding individuals who excel across multiple correlated dimensions. According to the literature, the three key individual differences variables are intelligence, conscientiousness, and emotional stability. Consequently, data were simulated using a multivariate normal distribution (N = 20 million), where the three variables were standardized (mean of 0 and SD of 1). The correlations were specified as: intelligence with conscientiousness (−0.03), intelligence with emotional stability (0.07), and conscientiousness with emotional stability (0.42). Cases were classified into four categories based on z-scores across the three dimensions: notable (≥ 0.0 SD), remarkable (≥ 1.0 SD), exceptional (≥ 2.0 SD), and profoundly exceptional (≥ 3.0 SD). Approximately 16% of cases were classified as notable, 1% as remarkable, and only 0.0085% met the exceptional criterion of 2 SDs above the mean. Just one case was identified as profoundly exceptional. These findings highlight the rarity of individuals excelling across multiple traits, suggesting a need to recalibrate recruitment expectations. Even moderately above-average individuals on these key dimensions may merit greater recognition due to their scarcity.
From moral exemplar to underperformer? The double-edged sword of ethical leadership for leader in-role and extra-role performance
Grace Ching Chi Ho, David Welsh & John Bush
Journal of Applied Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Given the overall positive influence ethical leaders have on their followers’ performance, the literature has largely assumed that ethical leadership also facilitates the performance of leaders themselves. We challenge this assumption by adopting a within-person perspective to reveal more nuanced relationships between distinct forms of daily ethical leadership and daily leader performance. Building on the affect theory of social exchange (Lawler, 2001), we develop a theoretical model that examines the diverging effects of daily promotion- and prevention-focused ethical leadership on daily leader performance through the reciprocal influence of followers’ affective reactions. Specifically, we predict that whereas daily promotion-focused ethical leadership will elicit follower displayed gratitude toward the leader, daily prevention-focused ethical leadership will elicit follower displayed anger toward the leader. Downstream, we predict that follower displayed gratitude and anger will subsequently influence leaders’ in-role and extra-role performance. We also explore how overall social exchange quality shapes the daily affective and behavioral dynamics between leaders and followers. Results from three studies using a multimethod approach provide convergent support for our model. Overall, this research offers both theoretical and practical insights about the potentially unexpected leader-centric consequences of ethical leadership.
Managerial Ability and Labor Investment
Mark Anderson, Peter Sherer & Dongning Yu
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
The capability of higher-ability managers to acquire and use resources more efficiently than lower-ability managers suggests a positive linear relation between labor investment efficiency (LIE) and managerial ability (MA). However, a puzzle emerges about how the best managers set themselves apart from their peers, calling into question the linearity of the relation between LIE and MA. We explore this puzzle by asking how the highest-ability managers achieve the highest performance levels. We then investigate this puzzle empirically by considering alternatives to a linear relation between LIE and MA. We begin with the distinction that managers achieve the highest performance when they combine efficient exploitation of existing products and services with successful exploration for innovations in products and services. This point is relevant to our puzzle because a firm’s labor needs for exploration are high and unpredictable. Thus, we expect the highest-ability managers to purposefully invest more than predicted by a model of optimal labor investment across firms. In contrast, we expect low-ability managers, who are less able to evaluate, forecast, and make efficient investments, to deviate more from predicted labor investment and vacillate between over- and underinvestment. We present evidence that supports our predictions of nonlinear relations between LIE and MA, with high-ability managers investing more than predicted and low-ability managers over- and underinvesting. We make and test related hypotheses about exploration (investment in research and development), and we probe further by relating future firm performance to over- and underinvestment in labor for different levels of MA.
Beefing IT up for your Investor? Engagement with Open Source Communities, Innovation and Startup Funding: Evidence from GitHub
Annamaria Conti, Christian Peukert & Maria Roche
Organization Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We study the engagement of nascent firms with open source communities and its implications for innovation and attracting funding. To do so, we link data on 160,065 U.S. startups from Crunchbase to their activities on the open source software development platform GitHub. In a matched sample of firms with and without GitHub activities, difference-in-differences models reveal a substantial increase in the likelihood of being funded after early-stage startups engage with open source communities on GitHub. This relationship is weaker for firms that employ GitHub for internal development only. Startups developing novel technologies tend to benefit more from engaging with open source communities, unlike those in highly competitive environments. This heterogeneity highlights a potential trade-off between engaging with open source communities and appropriability. To provide insight regarding mechanisms, we classify startups' technology use-cases on GitHub using machine learning and exploit data on product launches. Our results from these additional analyses support the notion that one important channel potentially driving our findings is the access to external knowledge for technology development provided by open source communities. Engaging with these communities may thereby aid startups in innovating and creating a (minimum) viable product.