Das IWH auf der ASSA-Jahrestagung 2020 in San Diego
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Does Gender Affect Innovation? Evidence from Female Chief Technology Officers
Wassim Dbouk, Iftekhar Hasan, Nada Kobeissi, Qiang Wu, Li Zheng
Research Policy,
Nr. 9,
2021
Abstract
In this paper, we examine the impact of female Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) on corporate innovation. We find that firms with female CTOs are more innovative (as captured by both patent counts and patent citations) than firms with male CTOs. This effect is more pronounced for firms with a stronger innovation-supportive culture, firms with female CEOs, and when female CTOs are more powerful. Using mediation analyses, we further validate that female CTOs’ transformational leadership style is a plausible mechanism through which they affect innovation positively.
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Do Activist Hedge Funds Target Female CEOs? The Role of CEO Gender in Hedge Fund Activism
Bill Francis, Iftekhar Hasan, Yinjie (Victor) Shen, Qiang Wu
Journal of Financial Economics,
Nr. 1,
2021
Abstract
Using a comprehensive US hedge fund activism dataset from 2003 to 2018, we find that activist hedge funds are about 52% more likely to target firms with female CEOs compared to firms with male CEOs. We find that firm fundamentals, the existence of a “glass cliff,” gender discrimination bias, and hedge fund activists’ inherent characteristics do not explain the observed gender effect. We also find that the transformational leadership style of female CEOs is a plausible explanation for this gender effect: instead of being self-defensive, female CEOs are more likely to communicate and cooperate with hedge fund activists to achieve intervention goals. Finally, we find that female-led targets experience greater increases in market and operational performance subsequent to hedge fund targeting.
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“The Good News about Bad News”: Information about Past Organizational Failure and Its Impact on Worker Productivity
Sabrina Jeworrek, Vanessa Mertins, Michael Vlassopoulos
Leadership Quarterly,
Nr. 3,
2021
Abstract
Failure in organizations is very common. Little is known about whether leaders should provide information about past organizational failure to followers and how this might affect their future performance. We conducted a field experiment in which we recruited temporary workers to carry out a phone campaign to attract new volunteers and randomly assigned them to either receive or not to receive information about a failed mail campaign pursuing the same goal. We find that informed workers performed better, regardless of whether they had previously worked on the failed mail campaign or not. Evidence from a second field experiment with students asked to support voluntarily a campaign for reducing food waste corroborates the finding. We explore the role of leadership tactics behind our findings in a third online survey experiment. We conclude that information about past failure is unlikely to have a negative impact on work performance, and might even lead to performance improvement. Implications for future research on the relevance of leadership tactics when giving such information are discussed.
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Connecting to Power: Political Connections, Innovation, and Firm Dynamics
Ufuk Akcigit, Salomé Baslandze, Francesca Lotti
NBER Working Paper,
Nr. 25136,
2018
Abstract
How do political connections affect firm dynamics, innovation, and creative destruction? To answer this question, we build a firm dynamics model, where we allow firms to invest in innovation and/or political connection to advance their productivity and to overcome certain market frictions. Our model generates a number of theoretical testable predictions and highlights a new interaction between static gains and dynamic losses from rent-seeking in aggregate productivity. We test the predictions of our model using a brand-new dataset on Italian firms and their workers, spanning the period from 1993 to 2014, where we merge: (i) firm-level balance sheet data; (ii) social security data on the universe of workers; (iii) patent data from the European Patent Office; (iv) the national registry of local politicians; and (v) detailed data on local elections in Italy. We find that firm-level political connections are widespread, especially among large firms, and that industries with a larger share of politically connected firms feature worse firm dynamics. We identify a leadership paradox: when compared to their competitors, market leaders are much more likely to be politically connected, but much less likely to innovate. In addition, political connections relate to a higher rate of survival, as well as growth in employment and revenue, but not in productivity – a result that we also confirm using a regression discontinuity design.
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Firm Leadership and the Gender Pay Gap: Do Active Owners Discriminate more than Hired Managers?
Boris Hirsch, Steffen Müller
Journal for Labour Market Research,
Nr. 1,
2014
Abstract
Auf Grundlage eines großen kombinierten Arbeitgeber-Arbeitnehmer-Datensatzes für Deutschland untersuchen wir Unterschiede im unerklärten geschlechtsspezifischen Lohndifferential zwischen eigentümer- und managementgeführten Unternehmen. Wir stellen die Hypothese auf, dass sich aktiven Eigentümern und angestellten Managern unterschiedliche Spielräume zur Auslebung ihrer gewinnsenkenden diskriminatorischen Präferenzen eröffnen und sich daher die Lohndifferentiale zwischen eigentümer- und managementgeführten Unternehmen unterscheiden sollten. Empirisch finden wir statistisch wie ökonomisch signifikant höhere Lohndifferentiale in eigentümergeführten Unternehmen. Die Beschränkung der Stichproben auf hinreichend ähnliche eigentümer- und managementgeführte Unternehmen lässt diese markanten Unterschiede in den Lohndifferentialen jedoch verschwinden. Unsere Ergebnisse deuten daher nicht darauf hin, dass aktive Eigentümer per se mehr diskriminieren.
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Does Qualification Drive Innovation? A Microeconometric Analysis Using Linked-employer-employee Data
Bianca Brandenburg, Jutta Günther, Lutz Schneider
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 10,
2007
Abstract
Degree-level science and engineering skills as well as management and leadership skills are often referred to as a source of innovative activities within companies. Broken down by sectoral innovation patterns, this article examines the role of formal education and actual occupation for product innovation performance in manufacturing firms within a probit model. It uses unique micro data for Germany (LIAB) that contain detailed information about innovative activities and the qualification of employees. We find significant differences of the human capital endowment between sectors differentiated according to the Pavitt classification. Sectors with a high share of highly skilled employees engage in product innovation above average (specialized suppliers and science based industries). According to our hitherto estimation results, within these sectors the share of highly skilled employees does not, however, substantially increase the probability to be an innovative firm.
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