The Equalizer
Army Service in the All-Volunteer Era
Kyle Greenberg et al.
Quarterly Journal of Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Since the beginning of the all-volunteer era, millions of young Americans have chosen to enlist in the military. These volunteers disproportionately come from disadvantaged backgrounds, and while some aspects of military service are likely to be beneficial, exposure to violence and other elements of service could worsen outcomes. This paper links the universe of Army applicants between 1990 and 2011 to their federal tax records and other administrative data and uses two eligibility thresholds in the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) in a regression discontinuity design to estimate the effects of Army enlistment on earnings and related outcomes. In the 19 years following application, Army service increases average annual earnings by over $$4,000 at both cutoffs. However, whether service increases long-run earnings varies significantly by race. Black servicemembers experience annual gains of $$5,500 to $$15,000 11–19 years after applying while White servicemembers do not experience significant changes. By providing Black servicemembers a stable and well-paying Army job and by opening doors to higher-paid postservice employment, the Army significantly closes the Black-White earnings gap in our sample.
When “Good People” Sexually Harass: The Role of Power and Moral Licensing on Sexual Harassment Perceptions and Intentions
Tuyen Dinh, Laurel Mikalouski & Margaret Stockdale
Psychology of Women Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
History has shown that people who embody responsibility-focused power have been credibly accused of sexual harassment. Drawing from power-approach and moral licensing theories, we present two complementary studies examining how responsibility-focused power triggers moral licensing, which, in turn, decreases perceptions of sexual harassment (Study 1) and increases intentions to engage in sexual harassment (Study 2). In Study 1, 365 participants read a scenario of a man embodying responsibility-focused power, self-focused power, or low power (control) and then read a case about the man’s alleged sexual harassment against a subordinate. Findings illustrated that moral crediting mediated the effect of power construal on false accusation judgments. In Study 2, 250 participants were primed to experience responsibility-focused power or low power. Responsibility-focused power increased sexual harassment intentions through effects on communal feelings and moral crediting. Based on these findings, we develop a new theoretical perspective on why sexual harassment occurs and why people deny perceiving it. We provide practical recommendations to organizational leaders for developing interventions, such as training, that may disrupt effects of power and moral licensing on sexual harassment intentions. We also encourage public discourse on the harms of harassment that supposed “good people” commit.
The Effect of Group Identity on Hiring Decisions with Incomplete Information
Fortuna Casoria, Ernesto Reuben & Christina Rott
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigate the effects of group identity on hiring decisions with adverse selection problems. We run a laboratory experiment in which employers cannot observe a worker’s ability or verify the veracity of the ability the worker claims to have. We evaluate whether sharing an identity results in employers discriminating in favor of ingroup workers and whether it helps workers and employers overcome the adverse selection problem. We induce identities using the minimal group paradigm and study two settings: one in which workers cannot change their identity and one in which they can. Although sharing a common identity does not make the worker’s claims more honest, employers strongly discriminate in favor of ingroup workers when identities are fixed. Discrimination cannot be explained by employers’ beliefs and, hence, seems to be taste-based. When possible, few workers change their identity. However, the mere possibility of changing identities erodes the employers’ trust toward ingroup workers and eliminates discrimination.
Collective Attention and Collective Intelligence: The Role of Hierarchy and Team Gender Composition
Anita Williams Woolley et al.
Organization Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Collective intelligence (CI) captures a team’s ability to work together across a wide range of tasks and can vary significantly between teams. Extant work demonstrates that the level of collective attention a team develops has an important influence on its level of CI. An important question, then, is what enhances collective attention? Prior work demonstrates an association with team composition; here, we additionally examine the influence of team hierarchy and its interaction with team gender composition. To do so, we conduct an experiment with 584 individuals working in 146 teams in which we randomly assign each team to work in a stable, unstable, or unspecified hierarchical team structure and vary team gender composition. We examine how team structure leads to different behavioral manifestations of collective attention as evidenced in team speaking patterns. We find that a stable hierarchical structure increases more cooperative, synchronous speaking patterns but that unstable hierarchical structure and a lack of specified hierarchical structure both increase competitive, interruptive speaking patterns. Moreover, the effect of cooperative versus competitive speaking patterns on collective intelligence is moderated by the teams’ gender composition; majority female teams exhibit higher CI when their speaking patterns are more cooperative and synchronous, whereas all male teams exhibit higher CI when their speaking involves more competitive interruptions. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings for enhancing collective intelligence in organizational teams.
Sexual harassment training and men's motivation to work with women
Justine Tinkler, Jody Clay-Warner & Malissa Alinor
Social Science Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
With the #MeToo movement generating renewed public attention to the problem of sexual misconduct, it is an important time to assess how sexual harassment training affects men's motivation to work with women. We conducted an experiment in which we exposed undergraduate men to sexual harassment policy training and then assessed their motivation to work with a female partner on a decision-making task. We employed a 2 × 2 design in which participants were randomly assigned to a policy condition (sexual harassment policy or control) and a team role (leader or subordinate). We found that policy training did not affect whether participants chose a female or male partner. However, we found that policy training led male participants to rate female partners as more dissimilar to them and that leadership status moderated the effect of policies on men's expressed anxiety about working with a female partner. Findings have implications for reducing sexual harassment and gender inequality.
Identity and the limits of fair assessment
Rush Stewart
Journal of Theoretical Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
In many assessment problems — aptitude testing, hiring decisions, appraisals of the risk of recidivism, evaluation of the credibility of testimonial sources, and so on — the fair treatment of different groups of individuals is an important goal. But individuals can be legitimately grouped in many different ways. Using a framework and fairness constraints explored in research on algorithmic fairness, I show that eliminating certain forms of bias across groups for one way of classifying individuals can make it impossible to eliminate such bias across groups for another way of dividing people up. And this point generalizes if we require merely that assessments be approximately bias-free. Moreover, even if the fairness constraints are satisfied for some given partitions of the population, the constraints can fail for the coarsest common refinement, that is, the partition generated by taking intersections of the elements of these coarser partitions. This shows that these prominent fairness constraints admit the possibility of forms of intersectional bias.
Birds of a feather flock (even more) together: An intergroup relations perspective on how #MeToo-related media coverage affects the evaluation of prospective corporate directors
Michael Bednar, James Westphal & Michael McDonald
Strategic Management Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examines how incumbent director reactions to media coverage of the #MeToo movement have impacted the evaluation of prospective corporate directors. We argue that heightened intergroup anxiety related to male–female interactions leads incumbents to seize on social attributes that bolster category-based trust in the reliability of prospective directors' interpersonal behavior. We predict that in response to #MeToo coverage, incumbents evaluate board candidates more positively when they share demographic characteristics or have prior social connections, and these effects are strengthened when incumbents socially identify with the firm. Empirical analyses using a longitudinal survey of evaluations of director candidates support these predictions. Our findings suggest how social movements can produce unintended consequences by inadvertently triggering psychological processes that partially offset the anticipated benefits of the movement.
Cohort, signaling, and early-career dynamics: The hidden significance of class in black-white earnings inequality
Chunhui Ren
Social Science Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
A central tenet in the now classic Wilson hypothesis surrounding racial earnings inequality emphasizes the elevated labor-market challenges for black workers of limited productive assets, yet the empirical evidence on this issue remains inconclusive. In this article, drawing on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), I uncover three mechanisms that tend to underestimate the difficulty facing lower segments of the black labor force: (1) the built-in bias of cross-sectional data that conflate career stages, (2) the cohort bias that concentrates on labor-market dynamics of a conservative era, and (3) the interplay between discrimination and productivity signaling that delivers heterogenous outcomes among black job seekers. When these mechanisms are accounted for, a pattern that is consistent with the Wilson hypothesis emerges – well-equipped African Americans see narrowed gaps in early-career earnings with Whites. These findings reconcile conflicting evidence in existence and provide guidance for future work.
Am I Next? The Spillover Effects of Mega-Threats on Avoidant Behaviors at Work
Angelica Leigh & Shimul Melwani
Academy of Management Journal, June 2022, Pages 720–748
Abstract:
Mega-threats — negative, identity-relevant societal events that receive significant media attention — are frequent occurrences in society, yet the influence of these events on employees remains unclear. We draw on Ray’s (2019) theory of racialized organizations to explain the process whereby exposure to mega-threats leads to heightened avoidant work behaviors for racial minority employees. We theorize and find, across two studies centered upon various mega-threats, including a mass shooting targeting Asian Americans and police killings of Black civilians, that event observers who share identities with mega-threat victims become vicarious victims which triggers an experience of embodied threat, an appraisal of the increased likelihood of personally encountering identity-based harm. The experience of embodied threat coupled with the racialized nature of organizational structures, which limits the agency of racial minorities (Ray, 2019), then compels employees to engage in threat suppression. Furthermore, we find that threat suppression consumes psychological resources leading to heightened avoidant work behaviors, or higher work withdrawal and lower social engagement, but when the psychological safety of identity-based discussions is high it attenuates this effect. Altogether, our paper advances research on mega-threats and race in organizations, and yields practical insights that can assist managers in reducing the detrimental effects of mega-threats on employees.
Diversity matters/delivers/wins revisited in S&P 500 firms
Jeremiah Green & John Hand
University of North Carolina Working Paper, December 2021
Abstract:
In a series of influential studies, McKinsey (2015, 2018, 2020) report a statistically significant positive relation between the industry-adjusted EBIT margin of global samples of large public firms and the racial/ethnic diversity of their executives. However, when we revisit McKinsey’s tests using recent data for US S&P 500 firms, we find statistically insignificant relations between McKinsey’s inverse normalized Herfindahl-Hirschman measures of executive racial/ethnic diversity and not only industry-adjusted EBIT margin, but also industry-adjusted sales growth, gross margin, ROA, ROE, and TSR. Our results suggest that despite the imprimatur often given to McKinsey’s (2015, 2018, 2020) studies, caution is warranted in relying on their findings to support the view that US publicly traded firms can deliver improved financial performance if they increase the racial/ethnic diversity of their executives.
Social safety nets and new venture performance: The role of employee access to paid family leave benefits
Jiayi Bao
Strategic Management Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examines how social safety nets providing paid family leave (PFL) benefits to employees influence subsequent business performance for entrepreneurial ventures. A multilevel framework guided by qualitative interviews proposes two competing mechanisms (pre-hiring recruitment gains via prospective employees and post-hiring operation losses via incumbent employees) and a firm-level contingency (venture innovation type). Leveraging the 2009-implemented New Jersey PFL program in a difference-in-differences design, I show that employee access to state-provided PFL benefits adversely affects the profitability for noninnovative new ventures but increases profitability for innovative ventures. Exploration of treatment timing and intermediate venture outcomes supports a dominating pre-hiring mechanism for innovative ventures (in which the ventures become more attractive to joiners) but a dominating post-hiring mechanism for noninnovative ventures (due to employee leave).
Promoting Digital Visibility for Disadvantaged Communities: An Empirical Analysis of 'Black-Owned Business' Labels
Maria Mitkina, Uttara Ananthakrishnan & Yong Tan
University of Washington Working Paper, June 2022
Abstract:
Following the BLM protests in 2020, technology platforms started integrating tools to help historically marginalized groups get more visibility on their platforms. In this paper, we study the impact of increased digital visibility for Black-owned restaurants on Yelp through user-generated reviews mentioning Black ownership and restaurants claiming “Black-owned” business badges on their revenue. To do so, we analyze over 27,000 restaurants in 10 large US cities on the restaurant review portal Yelp using a combination of restaurant-level data and GPS-enabled foot traffic data. We find that Black-owned restaurants identified as such by user reviews receive about 15.6% more visits compared to non-Black-owned restaurants and 10.3% more visits compared to Black-owned restaurants without such reviews. Further, Black-owned restaurants that claim “Black-Owned Business” on the platform experience a 6.4% increase in foot traffic after the introduction of badges compared to non-Black-owned restaurants. We find that affluent and White consumers drive this increase. Further, most of the increased demand is enjoyed by the Black-owned restaurants in the non-Black majority neighborhoods.