Seminar Series

*10:15 am start time*

Pri Shah (University of Minnesota)

Title:  Origins of Conflict

Abstract: Teams scholars have historically conceptualized and measured intragroup conflict at the team level. However, emerging evidence suggests that perceptions of intragroup conflict are oftentimes not uniform, shared, or static. These recent findings suggest two important questions: Where does intragroup conflict originate? And how does it evolve over time? We address these questions by investigating four conflict origins (individual, dyad, subgroup, and team) and three evolutionary processes (contagion, continuity, and concentration). Our longitudinal social networks study tracking conflict in project teams reveals less than 30 percent of teams experience team-level conflict. Instead, intragroup conflict more commonly originates and persists at the individual, dyadic, or subgroup level. We then examine the impact these differing conflict origins have on team effectiveness. Our results reveal conflict origins have both direct and indirect effects on team effectiveness. Our results both raise serious questions about existing methods and theory in the team conflict literature, but also suggest directions for the emerging literature looking beyond team-level conceptualizations of conflict.

Peter Bamberger (Tel Aviv University)

Title:  Pay Transparency's Wider Effects: How and When Pay Secrecy Affects Employee Turnover and Counter-Productive Work Behavior

Abstract: In this talk, after reviewing earlier research on pay transparency, I will discuss findings from two recent sets of studies building on uncertainty management theory. In the first set of studies, we develop and test a model explicating how and when secrecy in pay communication affect employee turnover-related outcomes (i.e., employee voluntary turnover intentions and firm turnover rates). Using data collected at the individual (Study 1) and enterprise (Study 2) levels, results indicate that rather than being universal, the relationship between pay secrecy and turnover is contingent upon perceptions of outcome fairness (i.e., distributive justice), with turnover intentions (at the individual level) and turnover rates (at the firm level) sensitive to the degree of secrecy in pay communication only under conditions of higher levels of distributive justice. In the second set of studies we examine the implications of procedural and distributive pay transparency on two forms of counter-productive work behavior (CWB), namely CWB directed towards the organization (CWB-O) and CWB directed against other individuals (CWB-I). Study 1, a field study, revealed that procedural pay transparency was inversely related to CWB-O with this effect mediated by higher perceived procedural justice, while distributive pay transparency was positively related to CWB-O via lower perceived distributive justice. Distributive pay transparency was also positively associated with CWB-I, with this effect explained by diminished social-mindfulness as moderated by social value orientation. Study 2, a lab-based team simulation manipulating participants’ pay level relative to that of teammates, extended these results. Pay transparency (vs. secrecy) generated higher (lower) levels of CWB-O via decreased (increased) perceptions of distributive justice when pay was lower (higher) than that of teammates. Moreover, for those low in social value orientation, pay transparency induced more CWB-I via reduced social-mindfulness when pay was lower than that of teammates, and via heightened entitlement when pay was higher than that of teammates.

Steve Burks (University of Minnesota - Morris)

Title:  High Turnover in Long Distance Truck Load (TL) Motor Freight: Is it a Driver Shortage and Will Autonomous Trucks Fix it?

Abstract: The trucking industry has argued since 2005 that there is a shortage of truck drivers. Industry leaders also express continuing concern about the high level of turnover in a key segment of the industry, long distance truckload (TL) freight, which has been reported since the mid-1990s.  Recently they have urged the rapid implementation of regulatory freedom to experiment with autonomous trucks, arguing, along with firms such as Uber, that autonomous trucks may “fix the driver shortage.” We analyze the issue of high turnover in a large industry segment–long distance TL firms–in which driver turnover has been persistently high for decades, and in which the industry says the shortage is most severe. We present a simple model of the management problem facing TL firms and use it to argue that high turnover is a natural result of cost-minimization strategies of TL firms, given the product market constraints they face.  We suggest that the perception of a shortage among driver managers is primarily due to this background fact plus the role that turnover rates play as a “shock absorber” in an institutionally sticky pattern of industry price responses to demand changes. With these insights and model in hand, we ask what autonomous trucks are likely to change about this labor market. The answer depends on exactly how this technology is implemented, and we offer some speculative ideas. But we also suggest that in the short-to-medium run the use of this technology in TL could either increase or decrease turnover and the associated perception of a shortage of drivers, depending on details that are not yet available. 

Melanie Wasserman (UCLA)

Title:  Gathering Information about Careers: The Role of Gender

Abstract: We study the behavior of college students seeking career information from professionals. First, using novel administrative data from an online mentoring platform, we document the types of questions asked, their content, and how these differ by the gender of the message sender. We find limited evidence that student gender impacts the nature and content of questions. However, the data reveal substantial homophily by gender in whom students contact, which is not explained by observable characteristics, or by differences in response quality. Using a survey of undergraduates, we confirm that female students are willing to trade off valuable mentor attributes in order to access a mentor of the same gender. Next, in an ongoing field experiment, we will isolate whether advice seekers’ gender alters the access to and the content of information provided on career paths. The results of the field experiment -- combined with information on student preferences for mentor gender -- will be used to assess whether the mentor-mentee relationships formed exacerbate or attenuate gender differences in information and expectations about potential career paths.

Jasmine (Jia) Hu (Ohio State University)

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Jennifer Chatman (Berkeley)

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*CSOM L-118

Steve Courtright (Texas A&M)

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Mike Pratt (Boston College)

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Cindy (Zapata) Muir (Notre Dame)

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