B7011: Leading and Managing in Organizations
| Current Papers | |
| Here
are some unpublished working papers. They represent my most
current work. Please download and read them, but ask my
permission before citing them. Comments will be welcomed.
The files are ".pdf" files, so you will need an Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print them. If you don't already have this, you can get it free by clicking here:
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| Enemies of the State: Competition over the supply of order and the ecology of the Kibbutz, 1910-1997 with Tal Simons | |
| Some
organizations contribute to social order and are therefore
interdependent with the state, surely the most significant element of
any modern organization’s environment. We argue that the
relationship that these organizations have with the state will depend
on their power to threaten the state's autonomy. Order supplying
organizations combined with an able but insecure state will create
competition, as the state acts to disable a potential rival. We
apply these arguments to explain the growth and decline of the Israeli
kibbutz. In the indirect
governance period of the British Mandate, kibbutzim were institutions
necessary
for the burgeoning Jewish society and economy of Palestine. When
the
Israeli State was established, however, it adopted a policy of statism,
centralizing
the mechanisms of order in the state. This statism was combined
with
active competitive attacks on the kibbutzim, undermining their
legitimacy
and crippling their organizational apparatus. We show that
competition
from the state is the primary reason for the relative decline of the
kibbutz
over the last fifty years. This is contrary to the widely held
belief
that the kibbutz faltered in the face of more efficient capitalist
alternatives. |
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| The Interstate Institutional Network: IGO Connectedness, Governance and Embeddedness in World Trade / with Jeff Robinson and Marc Busch |
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| Membership in certain intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), for example the International Monetary Fund, has long been argued to stimulate trade. Yet, there are hundreds of other IGOs that are less familiar and less celebrated, but that also purport to promote trade and other interests. We incorporate the full set of IGOs by using shared-IGO membership to create a network of connectivity between countries. This approach allows us to demonstrate that trade between two countries increases by an average of $36 million with every additional IGO connection between them. We also contribute to debates regarding the mechanisms through which structural relationships influence economic behavior by showing that substantial trade benefits occur not only through economic IGOs, but also through IGOs that were formed for explicitly social purposes. Indirect IGO relationships are also significant, as there is greater trade between countries that have dissimilar relationships to others. We reason that such dissimilarities in the IGO network create brokering opportunities, where trade between two poorly connected countries flows between a third that is better connected to both. Finally, we show that the efficacy of IGO connections depends on the domestic institutions of the connected countries. Specifically, IGOs connections are more beneficial when they link countries with domestic institutions that represent the democratic division of power, and an openness to trade. | |
| Strategic persistence in the face of contrary industry experience: Two experiments on the failure to learn from others / with Gaurab Bhardwaj | |
| Empirical studies indicate that organizations do not always learn from the experience of others in their industry and thus persist with ineffective strategies. This can be partly explained by cognitive biases that impact strategic decision making. Using two experiments with a realistic strategic decision and actual industry data, we found strategic persistence more likely under three conditions. One, when evidence against a strategy was ambiguous rather than processed, allowing the prior-hypothesis bias to operate. Two, when decision makers felt highly responsible for making the initial erroneous choice and thus felt the need to justify their choice despite contrary evidence. And three, when decision makers were high self-monitors, i.e., those who are very perceptive and responsive to social cues. | |
| On the potential of gentle rule enforcement: Sufficient
conditions
and the example of cheating in exams / with Ido Erev, Ornit Raz, Dror Shany |
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| The current report shows that rule-enforcement policies that use moderate punishments can be surprisingly effective in achieving high compliance at reasonable enforcement costs. When the subjects of rules are rational, these policies can eliminate violations and reduce the costs of administering and suffering punishments. These policies are also robust to the main deviations from the rational economic model observed in psychological and sociological research. The value of these policies is demonstrated in a laboratory experiment and in an intervention study designed to reduce cheating in exams. | |
