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Market-Based Solutions to Vital Economic Issues

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Kenan Institute 2024 Grand Challenge: Business Resilience
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Market-Based Solutions to Vital Economic Issues

strategy and entrepreneurship

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We reassess whether and to what degree the hiring, development, and promotion decisions of S&P 500® companies have led to misrepresentation of and bias against their minority executives. Instead of the US population benchmark that has conventionally been used to measure misrepresentation, and from such misrepresentation attribute the presence and magnitude of racial bias and discrimination, we measure misrepresentation in US executives using the benchmark of the racial/ethnic densities (RAEDs) of their college cohort peers.

The case study "Electronic Financial-Advisor for Tech Savvy" (EFforTS, or Efforts) examines a Robo-Advisor start-up based in Raleigh, North Carolina, founded by tech-industry entrepreneurs. Efforts developed an algorithm-based online investment platform tailored for technology professionals, gaining attention through successful social media marketing.

While failure and success have important implications for individual and organizational performance, not all failure and success are equally significant in influencing performance. A key, but unexamined, element is one's expectation of the outcome.

Rumors are ubiquitous in the workplace, particularly regarding organizational changes. These rumors significantly influence worker behavior by introducing uncertainty, and thus, affect productivity and team performance. However, no studies have provided empirical evidence for these impacts due to data limitations on rumors and workers' behaviors in completing tasks.

While the literature highlights the benefits of internally redeploying resources, there is less empirical guidance on which resources are most likely to be redeployed. We examine the relationship between inventor characteristics and redeployment decisions, motivated by the tension between costs and benefits of keeping a resource at the source unit versus moving it to a new target unit.

We reassess whether and to what degree the hiring, development, and promotion decisions of S&P 500 companies has led to misrepresentation of and bias against their minority executives. Instead of the US population benchmark that has conventionally been used to measure misrepresentation, and from such misrepresentation attribute the presence and magnitude of racial bias and discrimination, we measure misrepresentation in US executives using the benchmark of the racial/ethnic densities (RAEDs) of their college cohort peers. Our key result is that the differences between US executive RAEDs and the RAEDs of their college peers are far smaller than those found using the US population, typically by an order of magnitude or more.

After being generated, a new idea is rarely perfect but must be clarified, improved, and developed in more detail. Unfortunately, idea elaboration and creativity do not always come together: many new ideas become less creative when elaborated. This research examines who elaborates new ideas more creatively.

Prior research on organizational responses to normative pressures has cataloged a spectrum of strategies, ranging from accommodation to resistance, but more assertive responses have largely been overlooked. We expand the existing repertoire to include the more aggressive, targeted, and intertemporal response of organizational repression.

Prior literature suggests many benefits stemming from founders’ strong identification with their firms. We suggest, however, that there is also a potential dark side. We argue that founders can become overidentified with their organizations, making them more likely to engage in irresponsible behavior that protects the firm but harms others, as moral and societal norms are viewed as obstacles to fulfilling an organization’s goals.

Are divestitures really just the “flip side” of acquisitions? Both divestiture and acquisition are important processes for firm scope change. Frequently, these processes are considered to be “two sides of the same coin” wherein a divestiture is simply an acquisition performed “in reverse.” In contrast to this perspective, the authors submit that these two corporate strategic processes have fundamental differences in their motivations, implementation, and ramifications.

Are divestitures really just the “flip side” of acquisitions? Both divestiture and acquisition are important processes for firm scope change. Frequently, these processes are considered to be “two sides of the same coin” wherein a divestiture is simply an acquisition performed “in reverse.” In contrast to this perspective, the authors submit that these two corporate strategic processes have fundamental differences in their motivations, implementation, and ramifications.

Heuristics play an important role in organizational decision-making. Although management and organizational scholars have contributed significantly to our understanding of heuristics in organizations over the past seven decades, the literature has become fragmented over time. Three parallel streams of research—(1) heuristics and biases, (2) fast-and-frugal heuristics, and (3) simple rule heuristics—have emerged with somewhat conflicting views on the origins, use, and implications of heuristics.