Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Incentivizing Innovation: Promoting Technical Competency To Win Future Wars., James E. Bevins

Faculty Publications

Despite numerous studies and initiatives, most current Air Force efforts to add science and technology talent have been insufficient. This begs the question: How does the Air Force incentivize and promote the necessary technical competence required to win future competition, conflicts, and wars? Several key initiatives, grounded in behavioral economics, can incentivize innovation and pursue science and technology expertise. Developed in the context of peer adversaries’ actions; global trends in technology, competition, and conflict; and the global competition for science and technology talent, these recommendations have the potential to reform institutional culture and unleash the creativity and talent of the …

Signals From On High And The Power Of Growth Mindset: A Natural Field Experiment In Attracting Minorities To High-Profile Position, Jeffrey A. Flory, Andreas Leibbrandt, Christina Rott, Olga B. Stoddard

Faculty Publications

We conduct a large-scale natural field experiment with a Fortune 500 company to test several approaches to attract minorities to high-profile positions. 5,000 prospective applicants were randomized into treatments varying a portion of recruiting materials. We find that self-selection at two early-career stages exhibits a substantial race gap. Importantly, we show that this gap can be strongly influenced by several treatments, with some increasing application rates by minorities by 40 percent and others being particularly effective for minority women. The heterogeneities we find by gender, race, and career stage shed light on the underlying drivers of self-selection barriers among minorities.

Introduction To The Special Issue On Couples, Families, And Finance, Melissa A. Curran, Ashley B. Lebaron, Xiaomin Li, Casey J. Totenhagen

Faculty Publications

For the nine papers that appear in this special issue, we identified three main organizing themes: (1) Understudied aspects of family financial socialization, (2) Individuals or couples in different-sex romantic relationships, and (3) Finances and perceived parent–child relationships. In this introduction, we describe the main points of each of these papers within each theme. We also discuss what we have learned from these papers (e.g., finances assessed using eight different datasets; range of samples including adults repaying loans, newlywed couples, and a nationally representative sample of U.S. college students) as well as what future research questions remain (e.g., financial studies …

Caregiver Treatment Consumption In An Experimental Treatment Marketplace, Delaney J. Darragh

Faculty Publications

Behavioral economics is an approach to understanding consumer behavior by integrating behavioral science with economic principles. Behavioral economics incorporates traditional economic principles with operant learning approaches. There is limited research examining how individuals consume psychological and behavioral treatments. This is especially the case for treatments designed for children. The current study used data from a previously collected sample to explore gender differences in an experimental treatment marketplace (ETM). Experimental treatment marketplaces are generally used to evaluate choices between goods and services (e.g., types of behavior interventions). An ETM was developed to evaluate treatment consumption when levels of evidence differed between …

Rationalizing Self-Defeating Behaviors: Theory And Evidence, Lars J. Lefgren, Olga B. Stoddard

Faculty Publications

Why do individuals engage in self-defeating behaviors like self-harm, addiction, and risky sexual behaviors? Why do they experience the apathy of depression or inaction when trapped by multiple competing problems? We propose a framework for explaining these and other related behaviors based on the insight that individuals can only experience a limited number of latent stimuli to which they are exposed. We conduct an experiment to test this model and find that more than two thirds of the subjects behave consistent with our theoretical framework.

Social Innovation, Gender, And Technology: Bridging The Resource Gap, Tonia Warnecke

Faculty Publications

Some of the most important resources are intangible, such as knowledge and access to networks. In the developing world, technology can facilitate these resources and address basic human needs in a variety of ways: from provision of farmer training and cloud-controlled clean water systems to health information and mobile money services. Some of these services expand access to resources in ways that particularly benefit women. In environments where women are disadvantaged socially and economically, information and communications technologies (ICT) can enable women to access valuable information, consider a broader range of business opportunities, access wider markets, partake in educational programs, …

How Are Brand Names Of Chinese Companies Perceived By Americans?, Marc Fetscherin, Adamantios Diamantopoilos, Allan K.K. Chan, Rachael Abbott

Faculty Publications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to conduct an experimental design of Americans’ preferences for the English version of Chinese brand names by drawing from prior research in psychology, linguistics and marketing. The impact of string length and semantic relevance to English on meaningfulness, memorability and likeability of brand names from Chinese companies was assessed. Design/methodology/approach – A 2 × 2 experimental design was used, whereby brand names are categorized by string length (short vs long) and semantic relevance to English (with vs without). Respondents’ perception of the Chinese language in terms of pronounceability, language familiarity and language …

Hierarchical Decomposition Of U.S. Personal Consumption Expenditure: 1984-1991 And 2000-2006, Steven D. Silver

Faculty Publications

We conceptualize structure in personal consumption by explicitly defining categorizations of goods and services that consumers typically make in defining and organizing these objectives in their heuristics. Results from estimation of an Almost Ideal (AI) Demand System in each of two study periods generally support the structural differentiation of consumption goods.

A Contractual Approach To Shareholder Oppression Law, Benjamin Means

Faculty Publications

According to standard law and economics, minority shareholders in closely held corporations must bargain against opportunism by controlling shareholders before investing. Put simply, you made your bed, now you must lie in it. Yet most courts offer a remedy for shareholder oppression, often premised on the notion that controlling shareholders owe fiduciary duties to the minority or must honor the minority's reasonable expectations. Thus, law and economics, the dominant mode of corporate law scholarship, appears irreconcilably opposed to minority shareholder protection, a defining feature of the existing law of close corporations.

This Article contends that a more nuanced theory of …

Tournament Incentives, League Policy, And Nba Team Performance Revisited, Joseph Price, Brian P. Soebbing, David Berri, Brad R. Humphreys

Faculty Publications

Taylor and Trogdon found evidence of shirking under some, but not all, draft lottery systems used in three different National Basketball Association (NBA) seasons. The authors use data from all NBA games played from 1977 to 2007 and a fixed effects model to control for unobservable team and season heterogeneity to extend this research. The authors find that NBA teams were more likely to intentionally lose games at the end of the regular season during the seasons where the incentives to finish last were the largest.

Gender Differences In The Response To Competition, Joseph Price

Faculty Publications

To investigate whether men and women respond differently to competition and whether this response depends on the gender mix of the group, the author examines outcomes of the Mellon Foundation's Graduate Education Initiative, a competitive fellowship program instituted in 1991 that was aimed at increasing graduation rates and decreasing time to degree. Men's performance, as measured by time to candidacy, increased 10% in response to the program, with the largest gains for men in departments with the highest proportions offemale students. Women did not increase performance, on average, but the response of women did differ greatly depending on the gender …

Gender-Role Orientation As Determinant Of Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy, Mary Conway Dato-On, Stephen L. Mueller

Faculty Publications

Entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) is often included in entrepreneurial intentions models to explain why some individuals are more likely than others to become entrepreneurs. An unsettled question among researchers is whether ESE differs between men and women. While early studies seem to suggest that men have higher ESE than women, more recent studies are inconclusive. Lacking empirical support for gender differences in ESE compels researchers to look for other factors to explain variation in entrepreneurial self-efficacy. The present study confirms two recent studies finding no significant difference in ESE between men and women in a representative sample of MBA students. This …