Leadership & Organizational Behavior

The present work examines how experiencing high versus low power creates qualitatively distinct psychological motives that produce unique consumption patterns. Based on accumulating evidence that states of power increase focus on one's own internal desires, we propose that high power will lead to a greater preference for products that are viewed as offering utility (e.g., performance, quality) to the individual.

Research across disciplines suggests that bad is stronger than good and that individuals punish deception more than they reward honesty. However, methodological issues in previous research limit the latter conclusion. Three experiments resolved these issues and consistently found the opposite pattern: Individuals rewarded honesty more frequently and intensely than they punished deception.

When bad decisions force business leaders to leave their jobs, organizations often rush to replace them with insiders, who are familiar with the original problem and the former leader. In times of turmoil, the choice seems natural and even obvious: Because insiders know the past, they should be less likely to repeat it. General Motors pointedly replaced Rick Wagoner as its chief executive officer with his protégé Fritz Henderson, a career GM employee.

Power is often considered the central animating force of human interaction. Who has power, who is affected by power, and how that power is exercised provide the foundation for understanding human relations (Russell 1960). Although it is difficult to give both a parsimonious and a complete definition of power (Fiske and Berdahl 2007; Lukes 1974), power is often defined as the ability to control resources, own and others, a definition rooted in theories of dependency and interdependency (Thibaut and Kelly 1959).

We investigate whether current mid-level and future entry-level managers subjectively value stock options and restricted stock consistent with economic theory. We also investigate whether managers' subjective valuations are sensitive to changes in key characteristics of these equity instruments. We believe our investigation is important for three reasons. First, in recent years firms have granted the vast majority of options to employees who are not senior-level executives.

A criticism of mechanism design theory is that the optimal mechanism designed for one environment can produce drastically different actions, outcomes, and payoffs in a second, even slightly different, environment. In this sense, the theoretically optimal mechanisms usually studied are not "robust." To study robust mechanisms while maintaining an expected utility maximization approach, we study a multiagent model in which the mechanism must be designed before the environment is as well understood as is usually assumed.

Previous research suggests that narrow identification with one's own racial group impedes coalition building among minorities. Consistent with this research, the 2008 Democratic primary was marked by racial differences in voting preferences: Black voters overwhelmingly preferred Barack Obama, a Black candidate, and Latinos and Asians largely favored Hillary Clinton, a White candidate. We investigated one approach to overcoming this divide: highlighting one's negational identity.

Much of the puzzle of underissuance of national bank notes can be resolved for the period 1880–1900 (the period when detailed, bank-level data are available) by disaggregating, taking account of regulatory limits, and considering differences in banks' opportunity costs cross-sectionally and over time. Banks with poor lending opportunities issued more, within regulatory limits. Banks tended to issue more when bond yields (the backing for notes) were high relative to lending opportunities.