The Age-Productivity Gradient: Evidence from a Sample of F1 Drivers

Aging is a global phenomenon. If older individuals are less productive, an aging working population can lower aggregate productivity, economic growth and fiscal sustainability. Therefore, understanding the age-productivity gradient is key in a aging society. However, estimating the effect of aging on productivity is a daunting task. First, it requires clean measures of productivity. Wages are not such measures to the extent that they reward other workers attributes than their productivity. Second, unobserved heterogeneity at workers, firms and workers/firms level challenges the identification of the age-productivity gradient in cross-sectional data. Longitudinal data attenuate some identification issues, but give rise to the problem of partialling out the effect of aging from the pure effect of time. Third, the study of the age-productivity link requires investigating the role of experience and of seniority. We tackle these issues by focussing on a sample of Gran Prix Formula One drivers and show that the age-productivity link has an inverted U-shape profile, with a peak at around the age of 30-32.Aging, individual effects, firm effects, match effects, Formula One

The moderating effect of economic reputation on middle-status conformity: a study on the Italian film industry

The relationship between an actor’s status and his/her decision to conform to extant social norms of behavior or to deviate from them is a common theme in the managerial and sociological research. Drawing on previous studies that have highlighted the presence of a U- shaped relationship between status and nonconformity, whereby low-status and high-status actors are more likely to deviate from accepted norms of behavior, this paper aims at investigating how reputation moderates the relationship between status and nonconformity. By relying on a sample of more than 1,500 films introduced from 1990 to 2011 by 730 Italian film producing companies, we hypothesize and find that an organization’s economic reputation negatively moderates the curvilinear U-shaped relationship between its status and nonconformity in a way that, for high reputation, the high propensity of a high-status organization to non-conform is mitigated

Getting What You Need: How Reputation and Status Affect Team Performance, Hiring, and Salaries in the NBA

We study how the reputation and status of resource providers affect the two organizational outcomes of product quality and revenues, hiring decisions, and prices paid to resource providers. We argue that reputation and status have different effects on outcomes: reputation has a stronger effect on product quality, and status has a stronger effect on revenues. Building on this, we argue that actual quality mediates the effect of reputation on revenues more than the effect of status on revenues. Moreover, reputation and status have different effects on how organizations acquire resources: when their product quality is low relative to their aspiration level, organizations will display a preference for recruiting high-reputation resource providers over high-status ones. Conversely, organizations will display a preference for recruiting high-status resource providers over high-reputation ones when their revenue is low relative to their aspiration level. Finally, although both reputation and status have positive effects on the price paid for a resource, we argue that the relationship between reputation and pay is weaker for high-status resource providers. We find support for our hypotheses in a sample of NBA players and teams

Who shall get more? How intangible resources and aspiration levels affect the valuation of resource providers

In this study, we identify the effects of reputation and status by determining how they are differently valued by organizations that are concurrently pursuing different goals. Building on research on intangible assets and on aspiration levels, we develop a framework to explain organizations??? valuation of resource providers. We expect organizations to value resource providers who possess a specific type of intangible asset higher as their performance, relative to aspirations, decreases on the outcome more closely tied to that particular asset. We also expect to observe this sensitivity primarily when the organization has a low level of the intangible asset in question. Based on this framework, we derive specific hypotheses using the differential relationships between reputation and status, as two types of intangible assets, and product quality and revenues, as two types of goals. We find support for our hypotheses using a longitudinal dataset on National Basketball Association teams and players

What’s in it for them? Advantages of Higher Status Partners in Exchange Relationships

This article explores the motivations that high-status firms have to enter exchange relationships with lower-status partners. We argue that high-status firms can secure greater effort from lower-status partners and that the amount of effort will be propor- tional to their status advantage over these partners. We further propose that such effort will translate to increased performance by mediating the negative consequences of affiliations with lower-status partners. This increase in performance constitutes the motivation for high-status firms to enter exchange relationships with lower-status partners. Findings using data on Formula One racing support our argument

Who shall get more? How intangible resources and aspiration levels affect the valuation of resource providers

In this study, we identify the effects of reputation and status by determining how they are differently valued by organizations that are concurrently pursuing different goals. Building on research on intangible assets and on aspiration levels, we develop a framework to explain organizations??? valuation of resource providers. We expect organizations to value resource providers who possess a specific type of intangible asset higher as their performance, relative to aspirations, decreases on the outcome more closely tied to that particular asset. We also expect to observe this sensitivity primarily when the organization has a low level of the intangible asset in question. Based on this framework, we derive specific hypotheses using the differential relationships between reputation and status, as two types of intangible assets, and product quality and revenues, as two types of goals. We find support for our hypotheses using a longitudinal dataset on National Basketball Association teams and players

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Knowledge, uncertainty, and the boundaries of the firm. Evidence from a study of Formula One racing constructors. 1950-2000

We examine how different kinds of uncertainty affect a firm’s decision to develop critical technologies inside or outside its organizational boundaries. We develop three main arguments. First, firms are more likely to incorporate sources of uncertainty by vertically integrating when firm-specific uncertainty is high. Second, firms are less likely to incorporate sources of uncertainty when field-level uncertainty is high. Third, firms are more likely to imitate design solutions adopted by successful firms to reduce competitive interdependence. Using panel data covering the period 1950–2007, we model the probability that car racing constructors participating in the Formula One World Championship decide to control engine production processes by integrating the corresponding activities into their organizational structure. We report results that are generally supportive of our hypotheses

Wishing Upon a Star: How apprentice-master similarity, status and career stage affect critics' evaluations of former apprentices in the haute cuisine industry

International audienceThis article explores how the similarity between a master’s and former apprentice’s products influences critics’ evaluations of creative professionals’ work. Through apprenticeships with well-known masters, creative professionals manage the competing demands for novelty and familiarity typical of creative industries and find their optimal balance. To gain positive evaluations, creative workers must demonstrate their offerings’ comparability with their former master’s, yet some degrees of novelty. An analysis of international haute cuisine chefs reveals an inverted U-shaped relationship between similarity of apprentice’s and master’s products, and critics’ evaluations. Furthermore, the analysis shows that apprenticeships with high-status masters and those that occur late in the apprentice’s career change this inverted U-shaped relationship into a positive one. The article concludes by highlighting the consequences of being a mainstream or a maverick with respect to the master in the creative industry and by discussing possible strategies for creative professionals to gain critics’ recognition