Onsite Agenda

 

 

Thursday 15 June 2023

At the School's Casino (ground floor, behind the cafe). When you check in at the School's reception desk, you will receive a lunch voucher.

Load your tray with food, hand your voucher to the cashier, and find us in the Fine Dining section.

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Roberto Weber, University of Zurich

Organizations are typically large, long-lived, complex and are composed of highly diverse individuals performing varied activities. In contrast, most laboratory and online experiments studying organizations involve a handful of generally homogeneous participants, interacting for short periods of time and performing simple tasks. How can the latter tell us anything about the former? This presentation will provide insights into how to tackle challenges when designing organizational experiments. While there is no "correct" way to model an organization in a simple experiment, some approaches are likely to be better for designing studies that will be more effective for answering a research question relevant for organizational research.

Room S3.01

Manon Desjardins, SKEMA Business School

While a principal finds complementarity in multitasking, an agent considers tasks as substitutes and usually decides to work on the less costly task. This phenomenon, called adverse specialization, brings some challenges to academics and practitioners in finding optimal incentives. One solution is to implement contingent monitoring and clawbacks to ensure complementarity from the agent’s perspective. This paper aims to test this theoretical incentive scheme. Specifically, using an experiment methodology, we explore how contingent monitoring and clawbacks, flat-wage, and partial incentives affect the effort allocation between two differentially measurable tasks.

Alexey Tyulyupo, ESSEC Business School

Categories emerge to chart the world in a manner most relevant to the given time, place, and goal. Once institutionalized, categories facilitate identification and evaluation by actors that take them for granted – the functions of categories well documented in the literature. They allow rapid cognitive inference, as one can derive the likely properties of a novel item from an established concept. This paper focuses on the less examined role of categories in search. Rather than evaluating every available option, one could assess a single member of the category to estimate its overall performance. This enables the reduction of the consideration set to either all members or non-members of the category. We propose that this category-based search process is efficient only if the item’s performance depends on the same characteristics that define categorical boundaries. We obtain evidence for this theory from an online experiment asking participants to test several items against an unknown performance function. The outcomes of this search process are the best if the options are split into categories according to the same feature that determines performance. If the basis for categorization is different than the performance-defining feature, optimal search outcomes are achieved by selecting from an uncategorized set of options

Saeedeh Ahmadi, Amsterdam University

We study the willingness of front-line employees to participate in strategy crowdsourcing (SC) initiatives in a Fortune 500 company. Based on an experimental filed study, with more than 1700 participants, we try to explain how a critical(disruptive) framing with regard to formal strategy processes and practices, and monetary reward may increase the willingness of the target audience to partake in SC initiatives. We also demonstrate that such positive effect is not universal and it is influenced by individual level factors, namely employees’ tenure and hierarchical position.

Kathrin Heiss, Vienna University

My research question is whether hierarchical firms cater to specific types of individuals and whether flat organizations appeal to others. I assess the effect of an organization's structural characteristics, taking into account individual employee characteristics, to explain individual outcomes, namely the retention of employees in a company. The findings may then inform the ideal policies for companies regarding the retention of employees, and potentially also their recruitment. In the project, I employ statistical analysis of secondary data as my primary methodology. I utilize a large-scale individual-level panel dataset that includes information on both company and individual characteristics. By using established measures to categorize different organizational structures and to extract individual employee characteristics, I am ensuring consistency with prior literature. I am currently in the process of designing an experimental study to follow up on the empirical results identified in the current study.

Runar Solberg, Norwegian University of Life Sciences

Role Consolidation (RC) is commonplace both within and across organizations. Aimed at the realization of synergy and seen as a source of economies of scope, RC leads to formal and physical integration or sharing of assets that were previously managed and utilized by a single unit. It is clear that RC is highly challenging for the stakeholders involved. Existing research has documented that RC sometimes produces disappointing results in the form of cost overruns and reduction in service quality. Despite its ubiquity, there is, to my knowledge, no systematic framework that can help decision makers identify and weigh different criteria that may be relevant when making such a decision. The overall goal of this research project is thus to establish and evaluate an analytical decision support tool based on theory and empirical research. In a previous Delphi study, a panel of experts evaluated a prototype tool. The purpose of the current study is to evaluate whether novices and experts differ with regard to criteria preferences when using the tool.

Stefano Benincasa, Vienna University

Using a laboratory experiment with 172 participants, we compare how individuals and dyads search a task that is decomposed into two subtasks characterized by low or high interdependence. Participants face identical incentives while being exposed to part-whole feedback across all conditions. Our findings show that dyads are more likely to give up active search than individuals. But when they don’t maintain the status quo, they tend to search more broadly. We identify two causal mechanisms for these behaviors. The first is a higher sensitivity of dyads to feedback about the whole: Dyads are more likely to reduce information processing and change in the face of negative aggregate performance feedback. The second is a higher sensitivity of individuals to feedback about the parts: Individuals pay more attention to performance differences between interdependent subtasks, leading them to search more narrowly. We discuss implications for strategy and organization design.

Mehdi Ibn Brahim, SKEMA Business School

Entrepreneurial ventures are subject to the liability of newness, which translates into difficulties to access resources. The latter leads to a high rate of failure among startups. One such resource is human capital. It is particularly important for startups, especially in knowledge intensive industries. In the present study, we identify a construct that is of higher importance for technical human capital when evaluating employment opportunities: expected role ambiguity. Using two online framed field experiments, we explore how expected role ambiguity influences organizational attractiveness. Our results show that for individuals with a technical training, expected role ambiguity results in lower organizational attractiveness for established firms. This effect is less strong for new ventures. For individuals with a business training, expected role ambiguity does not affect organizational attractiveness for established firms, while having a large negative effect for new ventures. We contribute to the strategic human capital literature, entrepreneurship literature and the literature on role theory by uncovering a new mechanism of talents attraction, and by shedding light on key differences between prospects with a technical training and those with a business training.

Maren Mickeler, Ludwig Maximilian University

Organizations often rely on groups (e.g. a work-teams or committees) composed of multiple decision makers to decide on strategic matters. To aggregate individual judgments, groups frequently rely on voting whereby members reveal their choices in a sequential manner. In such sequential decision-making contexts, individuals can rely to two types of information: private information (e.g. a person’s expertise and subjective evaluation) and public information (e.g. the decisions made by other group members). Research on the relative influence of public versus private information has found that individuals often tend to follow the behavior of preceding persons and ignore their own private information, which can lead to suboptimal group outcomes. In this study, we explore how disclosing the type of information primarily used in individuals’ judgements (i.e. private versus public information) influences judgements of subsequent group members, and ultimately group outcomes.

Yashwant Singh Yadav, Norwegian University of Life Sciences

Many organizations have in the recent past implemented dual organizational structures incorporating elements of traditional hierarchy in parallel with flatter “agile” forms of organizing. Through this study we intend to understand how the integration of the roles of Line Managers, which represent typical managers situated in hierarchy, and Product Owners would influence the agile team effectiveness and performance. The project aims to understand how the interface of hierarchy and flatter forms of organizing can be better calibrated to lead large scale agile transformations in organizations.

Jihye Yeo, emlyon Business School

We intend to conduct a series of online and field experiments by partnering with a Small Business Development Center (SBDC), which offer small businesses a variety of business counseling services (e.g., personal administration, export assistance, sales, etc.). Our treatment involves a conversation guide that captures candidates’ psychological traits aligned with the new criteria. We first plan to conduct a pilot study to test whether our treatment works through an online survey platform (Prolific). We then plan to conduct an online vignette experiment to observe participants’ choices when exposed to different conversations between program managers and interested candidates. Once we have validated our intervention, we will proceed to conduct a field experiment in collaboration with the SBDC.

Sebastian Niederberger, ETH Zurich

We examine two common aggregation structures for evaluating uncertain opportunities: averaging and voting. Although both methods can be applied to the same problems, they have distinct implications for decision-making quality. Averaging combines individual judgments, potentially canceling errors and offering a more comprehensive view. In contrast, voting relies on expertise and can suffer from information loss due to its discretized nature. Both methods have their unique functional benefits and drawbacks, as well as differing perceptions of effectiveness in decision-making. Despite averaging's potential advantages, organizations frequently favor voting, motivating us to investigate barriers to adoption and factors influencing the choice between methods. We analyze the behavioral, cognitive, and statistical elements these structures induce at the individual and organizational levels, focusing on their impact on prediction accuracy in innovation-related settings. Our findings reveal that averaging had slightly lower accuracy at the individual level but higher accuracy at the collective level compared to voting. Voting led to more investment opportunities and false positives while averaging resulted in more false negatives. We highlight the trade-off between voting and averaging when combining multiple individual inputs to reach organizational outcomes. Our study contributes to understanding information aggregation in organizations and the relationship between artificial and organizational intelligence.

Mentees please seek out their mentors as scheduled. Mentors can make it easy by milling around S3.01.

The School's Deli (Cafe) on the ground floor is open for business and has outdoor seating. Rooms S3.01 and S3.02 will remain open too. And the Campus has untold nooks and crannies at your disposal.

Please make your own way to

Bornheimer Ratskeller, Kettelerallee 72

It is a half-hour walk. Alternatively you could try

Scooter/Bike: Bolt, Voi, or DB Call a Bike apps

Public Transport: RMV app or rmv.de

Taxi Cab: Free Now or Taxi.de apps. Or call +49 69 230001

 

 

Friday 16 June 2023

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Thorsten Pachur, Technical University Munich

Research on group decision making has highlighted both possible beneficial effects of groups (in terms of improved decisions) as well as potentially detrimental effects (in terms of amplification of individual biases). How does decision making under risk differ between group and individual choices? And how do group and individual choices differ when modeled with cumulative prospect theory, arguably the most prominent theory of risky choice? In a first task, we asked participants (N = 120) to make risky choices for 92 lottery pairs individually. For a second task, the participants were randomly assigned to groups of four and instructed to freely interact to make choices for the same set of lottery pairs. Compared to the choices made by individuals, the group choices showed higher decision quality (i.e., the option with the higher expected value was chosen more frequently). Risk aversion, by contrast, did not differ between the group and the individual choices. Modeling the choices with cumulative prospect theory indicated that decision making in groups was less error-prone than in individuals. Loss aversion, outcome sensitivity and probability weighting, however, did not differ between the group and individual choices. The results suggest that making decisions in groups does not qualitatively alter the nature of preference construction in risky choice but that group choices are more systematic.

Room S3.01

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Mehdi ibn Brahim, SKEMA Business School

Sebastian Niederberger, ETH Zurich

Runar Solberg, Norwegian University of Life Sciences

Yashwant Singh Yadav, Norwegian University of Life Sciences

Is there an emerging field consensus on (or criticism of) popular subject pools? Frequently sampled pools include those of university labs, business-expert populations, captive class audiences, as well as gig workers [Sona, Sojump, MTurk, Qualtrics, Prolific, for example]. What is the pools' relative suitability for organizational experiments?

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Stefano Benincasa, Vienna University

Franziska Lauenstein, Southern Denmark University

Maren Mickeler, Ludwig Maximilian University

What is the potential and realization of virtual confederates in the design of organizational experiments? It might be easier to run group studies if some group members were not real. We outline the conditions for effectively studying human behavior in organizations by pairing them with non-human participants (mimicking humans) in multi-agent tasks. We highlight pitfalls (e.g. consent, realism, etc) and opportunities (e.g. control, efficiency).

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Sheen Levine, University of Texas Dallas

Alex Tyulyupo, ESSEC Business School

Jihye Yeo, emlyon Business School

We showcase trends in enhancing reliability and rigor. To what extent does computational science influence experimental work in the top journals? The direction of travel is towards large Ns, metastudies, random sampling, post-hoc simulations, and more. How relevant are they for organizational experiments in particular?

Casino

Hyunjin Kim, INSEAD

Organizations are increasingly pursuing experimentation, both on their own and in collaboration with researchers. What are the ways in which these experiments in the field can help inform our understanding of organizations relative to the lab, and how can lab experiments extend findings from the field? This session will explore complementarities between field and lab experiments and how they can be combined to provide valuable insights.

Room S3.01

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Stephan Billinger, Southern Denmark University

What is the state-of-the-art for transparent research, concerning for example the public availability of study plans, stimuli, data, scripts etc. Trending repositories (AER, OSF, AsPredicted, GitLab, Dataverse...) have their their pros and cons. Are there any organizational research-specific considerations?

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Saeedeh Ahmadi, Amsterdam University

Manon Desjardins, SKEMA Business School

Jerry Guo, Aarhus University

To which extent and form is experimental organization science integrated in PhD curricula? Either in business-school syllabi or psych/econ subjects that integrate multi-person experiments in the subjects they teach. Which topics feature? Where would we need to study to learn the most? What are gaps and low-hanging fruit for extending curricula?

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Kathrin Heiss, Vienna University

Oana Vuculescu, Aarhus University

Thorsten Whale, SKEMA Business School

We review the literature and press for indications of organizational experimentation that goes beyond A/B testing products. Is there evidence of firms trialing organizational changes (structure/location/ incentives/etc) under controlled conditions? What do these attempts look like? Can lab experimentalists teach organizations anything useful in these endeavors (that field experimentalists cannot)?

Mentees please seek out their mentors as scheduled. Mentors can make it easy by milling around S3.01.

The School's Deli (Cafe) on the ground floor is open for business and has outdoor seating. Rooms S3.01 and S3.02 will remain open too. And the Campus has untold nooks and crannies at your disposal.

Please make your own way to

LaRuby, Hans-Thoma-Strasse 1

Tour the city or hop onto any subway going south from Miquelallee/Adickesallee station. Get off at Schweizer Platz.

Scooter/Bike: Bolt, Voi, or DB Call a Bike apps

Public Transport: RMV app or rmv.de

Taxi Cab: Free Now or Taxi.de apps. Or call +49 69 230001

 

 

Saturday 17 June 2023

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Gaël Le Mens, Pompeu Fabra University

Organizations are complex systems, but complex experiments frequently fail. Gael will explain why experimental designers should aim for simplicity and will unpack the thought process that went into designing some of his past experiments. As an addition, Gael will talk about some easy-to-avoid but recurring issues that come up in IRB applications he handles as a member of his university IRB.

Room S3.01

S3.01

Linda Argote, Carnegie Mellon University

Based on her experience as Editor-in-Chief of Organization Science and Vice President of Publications at INFORMS, Linda Argote discusses how to increase the likelihood of a successful experience at journals. She will describe the process used at most top-tier journals and suggest how to navigate it for organizational experiments. Particular attention will be given to how to deal with “revise-and-resubmit” comments on experimental work.

Casino