Leadership & Organizational Behavior

I develop a model of group decision-making, in which a committee generates proposals and holds open discussions, but the ultimate decision is either taken by a leader (decision by authority) or by majority vote. Optimal communication processes are studied that combine both cheap talk statements (proposals) and costly state verification (discussions). I show that by favouring one particular agent—the leader—authoritative decisionmaking reduces rent-seeking discussions and often results in a higher decision-quality relative to majority decision-making.

Theoretical work on the pricing of information reveals that competition between independent information sellers can result in prices that are negatively related to the quality or reliability of the information. The theory argues that when information products are unreliable (low quality), independent products become complements, and competition can increase prices. The goal of this study is to test empirically the theory's counterintuitive predictions with the help of an experimental market based on a business simulation.

The article explores the history of the U.S. Institutional Review Board (IRB) system and its penetration into local institutions. The author found that the Code of Federal Regulations Governing the Protection of Human Subjects in Research develops categories of risk for which various types of medical research are required. In this regard, research or reviews identified with the highest level of assessed risk can only be considered by a convened panel of IRB members.

Five experiments investigated how the possession and experience of power affects the initiation of competitive interaction. In Experiments 1a and 1b, high-power individuals displayed a greater propensity to initiate a negotiation than did low-power individuals. Three additional experiments showed that power increased the likelihood of making the first move in a variety of competitive interactions.

Dove and Axe were two highly successful brands owned by Unilever, a portfolio company. Dove was a female-oriented beauty product brand that exhorted "real beauty" and not the unachievable standards that the media portrayed. In contrast, Axe was a brand that purportedly "gives men the edge in the mating game." Their risqué commercials always portrayed the supermodel-type beauty ideal that Dove was trying to change.

The first step in any research is to decide what to study. Choosing the right question is essential for producing relevant knowledge. This is not to say that relevance should be subordinate to rigour. They are both important. A relevant question which is analysed rigorously produces valid knowledge that both advances theory and informs practice. A rigorously performed study on an irrelevant question may advance theory but does not inform practice.

This paper proposes a simple back testing procedure that is shown to dramatically improve a panel data model's ability to produce out of sample forecasts. Here the procedure is used to forecast mutual fund alphas. Using monthly data with an OLS model it has been difficult to consistently predict which portfolio managers will produce above market returns for their investors. This paper provides empirical evidence that sorting on the estimated alphas populates the top and bottom deciles not with the best and worst funds, but with those having the greatest estimation error.

American manufacturers often employ specialized agencies to create and produce advertising campaigns. This paper focuses on a critical juncture in the creation of American advertising: the meeting between the manufacturer (client) and the advertising agency, where advertising ideas are presented, discussed, and selected. Although the participants enter these meetings with the common goal of reaching agreement on the ideas that will be advanced to the next step in the creative development process, the attendees have additional, sometimes conflicting, professional and personal objectives.