Economic consequences and the motive to discriminate

Past research indicates that increasing the economic consequences of evaluations should theoretically discourage discrimination by making it more costly. In this paper I theorize that such consequences should also encourage discrimination in settings where evaluators may be motivated by performance expectations (e.g., stereotypes). I explore this theory using data from an online lending platform where a loan guarantee policy reduced the potential economic consequences of using borrower demographics during lending decisions. I find evidence that lenders evaluated female borrowers less favorably than male borrowers after the policy. This is consistent with the theory that the policy discouraged performance-motivated discrimination, while simultaneously encouraged consumption-motivated discrimination. Because I theorize about underlying motives for discrimination, the insights developed here should apply to a wide range of specific types of discrimination that vary according to these motives, including classic taste-based discrimination, homophily-driven discrimination, statistical discrimination, and status-based discrimination. Economic consequences may therefore represent an important dynamic link between different types of discrimination

Low-code entrepreneurship: Shopify and the alternative path to growth

The past decade witnessed a surge in the availability of low-code tools, where software-based solutions can be developed with limited or no need for writing code. One of the most salient examples is Shopify, which enables a layperson to become a fully-functioning online retailer without ever resorting to writing code. We ask: how do low-code tools affect growth trajectory and entrepreneurial success? How do they change the resources required to scale-up and grow? We explore these questions in the context of the e-commerce sector during the 2010s. Several databases were integrated to construct a sample covering about 400 VC-backed startups; including a detailed profile of their financial, human and software tools. The analyses indicate that Shopify-based startups start life with fewer financial and human resources compared to their e-commerce peers. Yet, despite the leaner beginning, they achieve a similar level of successful exits. The value created per employee, and cash-on-cash return for investors, place Shopify-based startups on par with their peers

Using allegations to understand selection bias in organizations: Misconduct in the Chicago Police Department

Selection biases present a fundamental challenge for research on ethics and misconduct. This issue is well understood at the individual level, where lab studies are often employed to sidestep it at the potential expense of external validity. However, much archival field data on ethics and misconduct are at risk of selection bias originating from within organizations, because organizations are typically responsible for evaluating and ultimately documenting who commits misconduct. In this paper I explore the nature and potential scope of this particular form of selection bias, its potential impact on the interpretation of extant findings from the literature, and how studying allegations may help detect it in specific contexts. Using detailed data on formal allegations of police misconduct in Chicago, I highlight how status characteristics such as race and gender may bias the creation of archival data. For example, black officers received allegations at similar rates to white officers, but were more likely to have them sustained, and allegations made by black complainants were less likely to be sustained than those made by white complainants—even when including extensive sets of control variables. These findings indicate that accounting for allegations may be a fruitful methodological avenue to better understand the optimal use of archival behavioral field data for research on ethics and misconduct

The role of allegations in the labeling of wrongdoers: misconduct in the Chicago Police Department

Research on misconduct has explored both what causes actors to commit certain behaviors as well as the consequences of those actions when they become public knowledge. However, less attention has been directed at the necessary intermediate step whereby social control agents label some actors but not others “wrongdoers.” As a result, empirical samples of wrongdoers may be indeterminately biased by the social environments from which they arise. In this paper I propose allegations as a distinct mechanism in the process by which actors are officially labeled wrongdoers, and highlight how discrepancies might arise between behaviors, the creation of allegations, and the assignment of wrongdoer labels based on those allegations. I apply this framework to recently released data detailing all 28,588 allegations of misconduct led from March 13, 2011 to August 19, 2015 against the Chicago Police Department, the country’s second largest law enforcement agency. I find that demographic traits of both officers and complainants do not equally predict the generation and validation of allegations. For example, black officers received allegations at a lower rate than white officers, but were more likely to have them sustained, and allegations made by black complainants were less likely to be sustained than those made by white complainants; a similar mismatch existed for gender. These results highlight how social factors may shape who ultimately gets labeled a wrongdoer in this and other settings

The relative effects of a scandal on member engagement in rites of integration and rites of passage: evidence from a child abuse scandal in the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia

Organizational research has documented that scandals lead to negative aggregate stakeholder reactions. There is little reason to believe, however, that the effects of a scandal are homogenous across different types of engagement. We therefore compare the effects of a scandal on member engagement in two types of rites at normative organizations: rites of integration and rites of passage. Rites of integration focus on the community, celebrate organizational values, and help strengthen organizational identification; they are thus enacted more by core members. Rites of passage focus on the individual, celebrate transition between social roles, and require only occasional engagement; they are thus enacted by core and peripheral members. Because of these differences, we hypothesize that a normative organization’s implication in a scandal affects rites of passage more negatively than rites of integration, but that this effect depends on scandal prevalence among neighboring organizations, organizational age, and organizational size. We test our hypotheses in the context of a child abuse scandal in the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Using yearly parish-level data from 1990 to 2010, we find that a parish’s implication in the scandal was associated with a larger decline in rites of passage (marriages, baptisms, and funerals) than in rites of integration (mass attendance). This difference was reversed with the increase in scandal prevalence. Furthermore, rites of integration were more resilient than rites of passage at older and larger parishes. To help rule in the plausibility of our organization-level theory, we present a simulation grounded in individual-level polling data from the context

Losing the faith: organizational identification and wrongdoing in the Catholic church

We contribute to research on organizational wrongdoing by empirically investigating the effect of a rare but consequential type of wrongdoing–intentional wrongdoing that leads to severe consequences–on supportive behaviors by stakeholders with different levels of organizational identification. We examine these relationships in the context of a 2005 grand jury investigation that detailed alleged sexual abuse within the parishes of a single Catholic Church archdiocese. We use this report as a natural experiment to investigate the effect of parish association with wrongdoing priests on churchgoer activity statistics during 1970-2010. Consistent with prior research, our findings indicate that the occurrence of a severe wrongdoing leads to lower support from low-identification stakeholders. Interestingly, and contrary to prior studies, while a mere occurrence of a severe wrongdoing does not lead to lower support from high-identification stakeholders, this group withdraws their support with an increase in the magnitude of wrongdoing

Status and Consensus: Heterogeneity in Audience Evaluations of Female - versus Male-Lead Films

Extant research finds that status characteristics such as gender are frequently related to average quality evaluations by external audiences, but little is known about whether such characteristics are also related to consensus in quality evaluations. We examine 383 million film ratings by consumers to assess (1) whether female-lead movies elicit less consensus in quality evaluations than male-lead movies, and (2) the potential performance consequences for producers. We find that female-lead movies are rated lower on average, yet elicit ratings distributions with higher standard deviations. In split-sample analyses we find that male raters are more negative than female raters about female-lead titles, and that the two audiences differ on dispersion and skew. We also find that independent studios yield greater box office revenue from female-lead movies

Matthew Regions? Regional Variation in Entrepreneurial Finance

Are a venture’s prospects determined only by the intrinsic qualities of the entrepreneur pre-entry and the post-entry decisions they make, or do seemingly exogenous factors, such as geography, play a role in entrepreneurial outcomes? For example, capital is perhaps the essential resource entrepreneurs must acquire to launch their ventures. Papers in this session focus on regional variation in access to start-up capital and how entrepreneurs wrestle with the realities of their geography. Some examine regional differences in the deployment of venture capital, while others investigate alternatives when it is unavailable locally