Paradigm development in Chinese management research: The role of research methodology

Kuhn’s paradigm framework asserts that scholarly fields differ in their level of development, and that such differences will be reflected in research norms and practices. In particular, early stage subfields are expected to have less consensus regarding theory and methods, negatively affecting both the consistency and sophistication of research designs. We examine Kuhn’s framework in the context of a rapidly advancing subfield: Chinese management research. This paper reports a content analysis of China-based studies against a matched set of management articles, focusing on methodology. In partial support of the paradigm framework, we find many differences in several important research design characteristics. Additionally, consistent with expectations, many of these differences decline over time. Based on these findings, we discuss the applicability of Kuhn’s framework to management research, and also identify normative guidelines for the design of future Chinese management studies.     

SUPPLY RESPONSES IN CROP AND LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION

This paper is concerned with regression models of time series data, where the data relate to market level aggregates not to individual farms or groups of farms. It presents ideas and preliminary explorations rather than final results. Some aspects of Nerlove's agricultural supply response model are examined, and some conceptual and practical problems discussed. Two general models are then proposed, one for annual crops and one for livestock products. In the time available little empirical work could be undertaken, so that the usefulness, or otherwise, of the thoughts and models presented rests on rather little evidence.     

Harnessing the power of social incentives to curb shirking in teams

We study several solutions to shirking in teams, each of which triggers social incentives by reshaping the workplace social context. Using an experimental design, we manipulate social pressure at work by varying the type of workplace monitoring and the extent to which employees are allowed to engage in social interaction. This design allows us to assess the effectiveness as well as the appeal of each solution. Despite similar effectiveness in boosting productivity, only organizational systems involving social interaction (via chat) were comparably appealing to a baseline treatment. This suggests that solutions involving social interaction are more likely to be effective in the long‐run than solutions involving monitoring alone.     

Mind the gap: CEO–employee pay ratios and shareholder say‐on‐pay votes

We examine the Securities and Exchange Commission's assertion in the pay ratio disclosure rule that the ratio of Chief Executive Officer to employee pay is useful to shareholders for say‐on‐pay (SOP) voting decisions. Using an estimated pay ratio for a broad panel of commercial banks from 2010 to 2017, we find that voting dissent on SOP proposals is significantly higher in the top pay ratio decile, particularly when institutional ownership is high. Results are robust to controlling for a number of other determinants of voting dissent, including proxy advisor recommendations and executive compensation. Additionally, inferences using the first year of disclosed pay ratios in 2017 for S&P 1500 firms are consistent. However, we do not find similar results in the other deciles of the pay ratio in either sample, calling into question whether a cost‐benefit analysis would support the disclosure requirement imposed by Dodd‐Frank and implemented by the SEC.     

The effect of class session length on student performance,homework, and instructor evaluations in an introductory accounting course

The author examines the effect of class format on student performance, time spent on homework, and instructor evaluations. The findings are unique and add to a limited body of literature. Each group comprised similar undergraduate students who received the same number of instructional hours, same assignments and were taught by the same instructor. Students in the one-day-a-week class performed significantly better than students in the two-days-a-week class. Students in the one-day-a-week class spent more time on online homework, although the difference was not statistically significant. Differences in instructor evaluation ratings were nominal.     

Public Disclosures in the Presence of Suppliers and Competitors

Firms’ reluctance at times to publicly disclose financial information is often attributed to concern that the information may be used against them by self‐interested outside parties. These outside parties may interact with the firm in the horizontal realm (e.g., retail competitors) or in the vertical arena (e.g., wholesale suppliers). This article is built on the premise that fully understanding the strategic consequences of disclosure requires joint consideration of horizontal and vertical relationships. When both rivals and suppliers are accounted for, we demonstrate that (i) lower intra‐industry correlation in product demand favors disclosure, with the precise correlation‐cutoff dependent on the firm's use of input suppliers; and (ii) the more a firm relies on input suppliers with pricing power, the less attractive is disclosure.     

The effect of management changes on winning in professional sports: Analysis using a dynamic lag adjustment model

This paper examines whether coaching and general manager (GM) changes among three professional sports leagues—the National Football League (NFL), the Major League Baseball (MLB), and the National Basketball Association (NBA)—effect on‐field performance. Our empirical methodology uses team‐level data by season and adapts a lag adjustment econometric approach designed to resolve several statistical challenges that arise both in general managerial settings and in sports settings. Our main finding is that coaching changes in the NFL boost the number of wins per season by between 0.5 and 1.2 in each of the first five seasons. Coaching changes have smaller, but still positive, impacts in the MLB and NBA. For all the three leagues, we find that GM changes have no discernable impact on performance. A separate cross‐sectional analysis suggests that those small impacts stem from coaches and GMs having extremely compressed talent distributions. The data indicate that coaches and GMs, en masse, are important, but changing the people who occupy those positions rarely seems to move teams to different locations on the performance distribution.     

Domestication experiments reveal developmental link between friendliness and cognition

The goal of economics is to understand human preferences. Most research focuses on adult humans and does not take an evolutionary approach. In biology experimental evolution has been able to shift the preferences of animals. As an example, artificial selection for friendly behavior toward humans results in a syndrome of changes that strongly resembles differences between wild and domestic animals. These domestication experiments have revealed precise genetic and neurobiological systems that are altered by the selection and linked through expanded windows of development. Similar evolutionary experiments selecting for a range of social, risk or discounting preferences could push economics toward consilience with biology. Prospects for a unified theory of economic behavior would be drastically improved.