Managing Well
Unintentional Outcomes as a Catalyst for Brainstorming
Taly Reich, Alexander Fulmer & Kelly Herd
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Companies increasingly engage in ideation exercises both with their employees and the public. One field experiment with Marketing and Sales employees at a candy company and four laboratory studies demonstrate a novel strategy to promote ideation quantity and quality. They reveal that prompting people to reflect on a history of their own unintentional outcomes in different domains can promote subsequent ideation in brainstorming tasks. This occurs because reflection on one’s unintentional outcomes can incite motivation to regain threatened control. We demonstrate this effect in various domains and in several different contexts that have practical implications for both organizational managers and individuals. Further, we identify a theoretically driven moderator of this effect, showing that the promotion of ideation occurs subsequent to control threats in domains perceived as relatively malleable, in which there is an expectation that control can be regained, but does not in domains perceived as relatively non-malleable.
Mind the Gap: AI Adoption in Europe and the U.S.
Alexander Bick et al.
NBER Working Paper, March 2026
Abstract:
This paper combines international evidence from worker and firm surveys conducted in 2025 and 2026 to document large gaps in AI adoption, both between the US and Europe and across European countries. Cross-country differences in worker demographics and firm composition account for an important share of these gaps. AI adoption, within and across countries, is also closely linked to firm personnel management practices and whether firms actively encourage AI use by workers. Micro-level evidence suggests that AI generates meaningful time savings for many workers. At the macro level, in recent years industries with higher AI adoption rates have experienced faster productivity growth. While we do not establish causality, this relationship is statistically significant and similar in magnitude in Europe and the US. We do not find clear evidence that industry-level AI adoption is associated with employment changes. We discuss limitations of existing data and outline priorities for future data collection to better assess the productivity and labor market effects of AI.
Résumé Washing
Janet Gao, Jun Oh & Joseph Pacelli
Harvard Working Paper, March 2026
Abstract:
We examine whether workers strategically revise their descriptions of past job histories on résumés to signal alignment with employer preferences for ESG, a phenomenon we term résumé washing. We find that résumé revision behavior reflects both labor market incentives and workers' intrinsic identities. Workers in management roles are more likely to revise their résumés to signal alignment. Democrat-leaning workers are more likely to include ESG language than Republican-leaning workers. Résumé revisions also exhibit strong political cycles. Additions surge after the 2020 Biden election and deletions rise after the 2024 Trump election. Exploiting variation in the timing of ESG commitments by major prospective employers, we show that workers begin adding ESG language to their résumés when potential employers initiate ESG commitments. Finally, we show that strategic résumé revisions are associated with greater job mobility and higher promotion rates both internally and externally.
Internal Versus Market Pay References in Knowledge-Intensive Firms
Claudine Gartenberg & Elaine Pak
Organization Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
How do firms balance market competitiveness with internal cohesion when setting employee pay? We examine this question using confidential compensation data on 19 million U.S. employees across 479 firms varying in knowledge intensity. We construct precise pay reference groups: internal benchmarks based on skill-equivalent peers across functions and market benchmarks based on same occupation, skill level, and region at other firms. We find that in low knowledge-intensity firms, pay is equally sensitive to both internal and market benchmarks, whereas in high knowledge-intensity firms, pay becomes decoupled from market forces and aligns with internal benchmarks. Internal pay alignment also increases following chief executive officer transitions that prioritize innovation. These patterns are driven by high-skilled employees in roles requiring complex problem-solving and collaboration. Moreover, firms with greater internal pay alignment generate more patents, including breakthrough innovations. Altogether, our findings reveal that although some firms maintain close market alignment, knowledge-intensive firms appear to decouple pay from market forces. This is particularly the case for their skilled workers, consistent with firms prioritizing internal social dynamics in contexts where complex problem-solving and collaboration are important for value creation.
Beyond Demo Day: Sorting and Value Added in Startup Accelerators
Youn Baek & Deepak Hegde
NBER Working Paper, April 2026
Abstract:
We study who joins startup accelerators, how founders sort across programs, and which accelerators improve startup outcomes. Using a comprehensive sample of about 750,000 U.S. startups linked to 329 accelerators, we adapt the teacher value-added framework from education economics to estimate accelerator value added (AVA) while accounting for sorting. Selection is systematic: observably better ventures are more likely to enter accelerators and to sort into higher-AVA programs. Yet accelerator performance is highly dispersed. Most accelerators have negative value added relative to a no-accelerator benchmark, while a small right tail generates large gains. High-AVA accelerators predict better long-term outcomes, including acquisition, employment, revenue, and valuation, and are also more likely to accelerate the shutdown of weaker ventures. We validate AVA using internal applicant data from a large U.S. non-equity accelerator.
Managers Allocate Additional Tasks to Intrinsically Motivated Employees: Exploring Mechanisms, Consequences, and Solutions
Sangah Bae & Kaitlin Woolley
Organization Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Intrinsic motivation is highly valued in the workplace with employees encouraged to express the meaning and enjoyment they derive from their work. However, the current research identifies a cost of intrinsic motivation: managers allocate additional tasks to employees they perceive as more (versus less) intrinsically motivated. We establish this effect across task allocation paradigms using managers’ actual employees, profiles of real workers randomly assigned to managers, and a laboratory experiment with a salient financial downside for the chosen employee (Studies 1a, 1b, and 2). Managers’ preference to allocate additional tasks to intrinsically motivated employees is serially mediated by the naïve belief that these employees will enjoy the additional task (i.e., motive oversimplification), which, in turn, reduces perceived risk of burnout from the additional work (Study 2, Supplemental Studies 2 and 3). Notably, this preference persists in a six-day longitudinal study with repeated allocation decisions (Study 3) and can negatively affect organizations (Study 3 posttest). Two theory-driven interventions attenuate this preference by intervening on managers’ decision environment (Study 4) and beliefs (Study 5). This research advances theory on motivation, person perception, and task allocation decisions and offers insights and solutions for the paradoxical burnout experienced by individuals who derive joy from their work.
Entrepreneurial deviance as bright and dark character virtues: The Harry Potter study
Martin Obschonka et al.
Small Business Economics, March 2026, Pages 949-975
Abstract:
Despite its centrality to entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial deviance remains poorly understood and hard to capture empirically. This study offers a fresh, character-oriented perspective, proposing that deviance may stem from deeper, but fundamentally different, personality structures. Drawing on a fiction-based personality typology from the Harry Potter saga, we use machine-learning methods to transform this typology into measurable constructs. We analyze large-scale data from the TIME Magazine Harry Potter Quiz at the regional level (N = 795,829) and a two-wave individual-level replication and extension study (N = 820). We consistently find that Gryffindor and Slytherin character types, capturing bright and dark forms of deviance, jointly predict entrepreneurial outcomes. These effects persist even when accounting for established entrepreneurial personality profiles. Our findings underscore the conceptual and empirical value of viewing entrepreneurial deviance through the lens of character diversity and equifinality. Both heroic and self-serving forms of deviance may play constructive roles in entrepreneurship, inviting renewed reflection on the moral complexity of entrepreneurial personality and behavior.
Collaborative Work Management Technologies and Managerial Intensity in U.S. Corporations: An Examination
Piyush Gulati, Arianna Marchetti & Phanish Puranam
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do digital technologies reinforce managerial hierarchies or, instead, make them less relevant? We propose that the answer to this question depends on the nature of the technology: specifically, its relative impact on managers’ capacity to supervise and on subordinates’ need for supervision. Applying this framework to collaborative work management (CWM) technologies that facilitate real-time collaboration, communication, and task coordination, we predict that the adoption of such technologies should reduce managerial intensity and increase decentralization in organizations. To test this prediction, we use a difference-in-differences design on a novel data set built from over 26 million job listings (Lightcast) and over 20 million social profiles (Revelio) matched to 3,017 U.S. public firms in Compustat, which we track over the period from 2010 to 2019. We find that over the observation window, CWM technology adopters show a 3% reduction in managerial intensity and a 5%–7% increase in nonmanagerial skills linked to decentralization in their job postings in the years following adoption. The pattern of results is robust to a battery of validations, alternative measures, and specifications, and it strongly supports the idea that these technologies enable collaboration and make organizations less hierarchical along the dimensions that we studied.