Documents disponibles écrits par cet auteur

Organizing contests for status / Matthew S. Bothner in Management science, Vol. 57 N° 3 (Mars 2011) 

Public ISBD [article]  in Management science > Vol. 57 N° 3 (Mars 2011) . - pp. 439-457 Titre : Organizing contests for status : The matthew effect vs. the mark effect Type de document : texte imprimé Auteurs : Matthew S. Bothner, Auteur ; Joel M. Podolny, Auteur ; Edward Bishop Smith, Auteur Année de publication : 2011 Article en page(s) : pp. 439-457 Note générale : Management Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : Networks  Graphs  Theory  Organizational  studies  Design  Effectiveness  Performance  Status  Leadership Index. décimale : 658 Organisation des entreprises. Techniques du commerce Résumé : What is the best way to design tournaments for status, in which individuals labor primarily for the esteem of their peers? What process, in other words, should organizers of status-based contests impose upon those who covet peer recognition? We propose a formal model of status-based competition that contrasts two competing alternatives. The first, following Merton, is the "Matthew Effect," according to which a tournament's architect directs slack resources to elite actors and thus widens the distribution of rewards by favoring cumulative advantage. The second is the "Mark Effect," under which a tournament's designer instead pushes slack resources to marginal actors and thus tightens the distribution of rewards. Our results suggest that although the Mark Effect is better for the social welfare of most tournaments, the Matthew Effect is preferable in two distinct contexts: in small tournaments where variation in underlying ability translates into acute advantages for the most capable contestants; and in large tournaments whose contestants face constant, rather than rising, marginal costs—a condition we relate to contestants' perception of their work as intrinsically valuable. Our contributions are twofold: We find, counter to the thrust of Merton's work, that cumulative advantage is not invariably optimal for the functioning of status contests; and we identify circumstances in which the production of superstars is likely to make contests for status better off in aggregate. Implications for future research on status and management are discussed. DEWEY : 658 ISSN : 0025-1909 En ligne : http://mansci.journal.informs.org/cgi/content/abstract/57/3/439 [article] Organizing contests for status : The matthew effect vs. the mark effect [texte imprimé] / Matthew S. Bothner, Auteur ; Joel M. Podolny, Auteur ; Edward Bishop Smith, Auteur . - 2011 . - pp. 439-457. Management Langues : Anglais (eng) in Management science > Vol. 57 N° 3 (Mars 2011) . - pp. 439-457 Mots-clés : Networks  Graphs  Theory  Organizational  studies  Design  Effectiveness  Performance  Status  Leadership Index. décimale : 658 Organisation des entreprises. Techniques du commerce Résumé : What is the best way to design tournaments for status, in which individuals labor primarily for the esteem of their peers? What process, in other words, should organizers of status-based contests impose upon those who covet peer recognition? We propose a formal model of status-based competition that contrasts two competing alternatives. The first, following Merton, is the "Matthew Effect," according to which a tournament's architect directs slack resources to elite actors and thus widens the distribution of rewards by favoring cumulative advantage. The second is the "Mark Effect," under which a tournament's designer instead pushes slack resources to marginal actors and thus tightens the distribution of rewards. Our results suggest that although the Mark Effect is better for the social welfare of most tournaments, the Matthew Effect is preferable in two distinct contexts: in small tournaments where variation in underlying ability translates into acute advantages for the most capable contestants; and in large tournaments whose contestants face constant, rather than rising, marginal costs—a condition we relate to contestants' perception of their work as intrinsically valuable. Our contributions are twofold: We find, counter to the thrust of Merton's work, that cumulative advantage is not invariably optimal for the functioning of status contests; and we identify circumstances in which the production of superstars is likely to make contests for status better off in aggregate. Implications for future research on status and management are discussed. DEWEY : 658 ISSN : 0025-1909 En ligne : http://mansci.journal.informs.org/cgi/content/abstract/57/3/439

The world is not small for everyone / Jasjit Singh in Management science, Vol. 56 N° 9 (Septembre 2010) 

Public ISBD [article]  in Management science > Vol. 56 N° 9 (Septembre 2010) . - pp. 1415-1438 Titre : The world is not small for everyone : Inequity in searching for knowledge in organizations Type de document : texte imprimé Auteurs : Jasjit Singh, Auteur ; Morten T. Hansen, Auteur ; Joel M. Podolny, Auteur Année de publication : 2010 Article en page(s) : pp. 1415-1438 Note générale : Management Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : Social  networks  Small  world  Search  Homophily  Knowledge  sharing  Inequity  Gender  Tenure  Status Index. décimale : 658 Organisation des entreprises. Techniques du commerce Résumé : We explore why some employees may be at a disadvantage in searching for information in organizations. The "small-world" argument in social network theory emphasizes that people are, on average, only a few connections away from the information they seek. However, we argue that such a network structure does not benefit everyone: some employees may have longer search paths in locating knowledge in an organization—their world may be large. We theorize that this disadvantage is the result of more than just an inferior network position. Instead, two mechanisms—periphery status and homophily—jointly operate to aggravate the inefficiency of search for knowledge. Employees who belong to the periphery of an organization because of their minority gender status, lower tenure, or poor connectedness have limited awareness of who knows what and a lower ability to seek help from others best suited to guide the search. When they start a search chain, they are likely to engage in homophilous search by contacting colleagues like themselves, thus contacting others who also belong to the periphery. To search effectively, employees on the periphery need to engage in heterophilous search behaviors by crossing social boundaries. We find support for these arguments in a network field experiment consisting of 381 unfolding search chains in a large multinational professional services firm. The framework helps explain employees' unequal access to the knowledge they seek, a poorly understood yet important type of organizational inequity in an information economy. DEWEY : 658 ISSN : 0025-1909 En ligne : http://mansci.journal.informs.org/cgi/content/abstract/56/9/1415 [article] The world is not small for everyone : Inequity in searching for knowledge in organizations [texte imprimé] / Jasjit Singh, Auteur ; Morten T. Hansen, Auteur ; Joel M. Podolny, Auteur . - 2010 . - pp. 1415-1438. Management Langues : Anglais (eng) in Management science > Vol. 56 N° 9 (Septembre 2010) . - pp. 1415-1438 Mots-clés : Social  networks  Small  world  Search  Homophily  Knowledge  sharing  Inequity  Gender  Tenure  Status Index. décimale : 658 Organisation des entreprises. Techniques du commerce Résumé : We explore why some employees may be at a disadvantage in searching for information in organizations. The "small-world" argument in social network theory emphasizes that people are, on average, only a few connections away from the information they seek. However, we argue that such a network structure does not benefit everyone: some employees may have longer search paths in locating knowledge in an organization—their world may be large. We theorize that this disadvantage is the result of more than just an inferior network position. Instead, two mechanisms—periphery status and homophily—jointly operate to aggravate the inefficiency of search for knowledge. Employees who belong to the periphery of an organization because of their minority gender status, lower tenure, or poor connectedness have limited awareness of who knows what and a lower ability to seek help from others best suited to guide the search. When they start a search chain, they are likely to engage in homophilous search by contacting colleagues like themselves, thus contacting others who also belong to the periphery. To search effectively, employees on the periphery need to engage in heterophilous search behaviors by crossing social boundaries. We find support for these arguments in a network field experiment consisting of 381 unfolding search chains in a large multinational professional services firm. The framework helps explain employees' unequal access to the knowledge they seek, a poorly understood yet important type of organizational inequity in an information economy. DEWEY : 658 ISSN : 0025-1909 En ligne : http://mansci.journal.informs.org/cgi/content/abstract/56/9/1415