Contributions published at Department of Business Administration (Egon Franck)

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Purpose: Previous research indicates gender discrimination in leadership positions. However, performance and not gender should be the key indicator when evaluating a leader. We examine the performance effect of changing from a female to a male coach and vice versa. Methodology: We analyze 1,093 Billie Jean King Cup singles matches from 2006 to 2016, with the match result as the dependent variable. First, we examine the very short-term effects arising from the change of a coach with a regression discontinuity design. Second, we evaluate the short-, medium-, and long-term performances. Findings: The results show that the gender of the new coach has no significant effect on performance. However, when a female coach succeeds another female coach, performance improves. This provides an argument in favor of female leadership. Practical Implications: Team managers should primarily focus on the quality of the coach instead of gender. The results also suggest that a continuum of female leadership is likely advantageous. Research Contribution: This paper contributes to the debate regarding the misrepresentation of women as head coaches and offers an avenue for further research.

Aim. The aim of the study was to analyze the relationship between personality disorders according to the new ICD-11 dimensional approach and attachment. To do so, we examined ten models of attachment and employed seven questionnaires. Method. The study was conducted online and involved a non-clinical group of N = 391 (68% women, 30% men, and 2% – people who marked the “gender – other” category, aged 16–65 yeas; M = 24.91; SD = 7.8). Attachment was measured using seven questionnaires, and the Polish adaptation of the PiCD Questionnaire was used to measure personality disorders according to ICD-11. Results. The regression analysis revealed a consistent picture of the relationship between insecure attachment (regardless of model) and personality disorders. “Negative Affectivity” and “Disinhibition” are associated with Anxious attachment, while “Detachment” and “Dissociality” with Avoidant attachment. “Anankastia” showed only a sporadic association with attachment. Conclusions. Attachment (according to theoretical models formed in childhood) is significantly related to personality disorders in adults. In the conducted study, a coherent picture of this relationship was obtained thanks to the use of many conceptualizations and operationalizations of attachment.

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Social entrepreneurship has emerged as an important means of addressing grand challenges. Although research on the topic has accelerated, scholars have yet to articulate an overarching framework that links the different pathways taken by social entrepreneurs with the positive effects of these efforts. To address this shortcoming, we conducted a systematic literature review which enabled us to conceptually differentiate between social value and social change as distinct outcomes of social entrepreneurship and identify seven pathways for achieving these outcomes. Building on our analysis, we outline a research agenda for questions pertaining to: the dynamics between social value and social change; how contextual factors and social entrepreneurs influence various pathways; design principles of business models and innovations that facilitate social value and social change; and defining, measuring, and ensuring accountability for social value and social change.

Demand planning is informed by demand forecasts, service level requirements, replenishment constraints, and revenue projections. “Demand forecasts” differ from “demand plans” in that forecasts only represent the distribution (or the most likely value) of product demand. Motivated by common forecasting practices in industry, our research examines whether forecasters recognize this difference between demand forecasts and demand plans. Based on a lab experiment informed by data from two large FMCG companies, we found that forecasters factor service levels into their demand forecasts, even when they are clearly instructed to predict the most likely demand and incentivized to minimize the forecast error. We establish that this result holds for students and practitioners alike, and show that this behavior is driven by the service level information, and not some other anchor. We use data from a recent industry survey to support the external validity of our key findings.

This paper examines the role of lifelong learning in counteracting skill depreciation and obsolescence. We differentiate between occupations with more hard skills versus more soft skills and draw on representative job advertisement data that contain machine-learning categorized skill requirements and cover the Swiss job market in great detail across occupations (from 1950 to 2019). We examine lifelong learning effects for “harder” versus “softer” occupations, thereby analyzing the role of training in counteracting skill depreciation in occupations that are differently affected by skill depreciation. Our results reveal novel empirical patterns regarding the benefits of lifelong learning, which are consistent with theoretical explanations based on structurally different skill depreciation rates: In harder occupations, with large shares of fast-depreciating hard skills, the role of lifelong learning is primarily as a hedge against unemployment risks rather than a boost to wages. By contrast, in softer occupations, in which workers build on more value-stable soft-skill foundations, the role of lifelong learning instead lies mostly in acting as a boost for upward career mobility and leads to larger wage gains.

COVID-19 vaccination campaigns provided a substantial contribution to the management of the pandemic. This paper aims to assess the success of COVID-19 vaccine communication campaigns in different countries, relying on Hofstede’s cultural dimension framework. The main objective of the paper is to find out the critical success factors of national communication campaigns. A case study analysis is conducted in a sample of Countries where vaccines are widely available free of charge and national communication campaigns have been used to stimulate citizens’ adhesion. Critical success factors of national strategies in terms of adopted media use and media formats, message type, adopted tone of voice and influencers’ role are identified and compared to the country’s cultural elements. The analysis suggests that the most successful communication campaign strategies, are those where the government and institutions tried to remain coherent and preserve the population cultural traits.

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To call attention to and motivate action on ethical issues in business or society, messengers often criticize groups for wrongdoing and ask these groups to change their behavior. When criticizing target groups, messengers frequently identify and express concern about harm caused to a victim group, and in the process address a target group by criticizing them for causing this harm and imploring them to change. However, we find that when messengers criticize a target group for causing harm to a victim group in this way—expressing singular concern for the victim group—members of the target group infer, often incorrectly, that the messenger views the target group as less moral and unworthy of concern. This inferred lack of moral concern reduces criticism acceptance and prompts backlash from the target group. To address this problem, we introduce dual concern messaging—messages that simultaneously communicate that a target group causes harm to a victim group and express concern for the target group. A series of several experiments demonstrate that dual concern messages reduce inferences that a critical messenger lacks moral concern for the criticized target group, increase the persuasiveness of the criticism among members of the target group, and reduce backlash from consumers against a corporate messenger. When pursuing justice for victims of a target group, dual concern messages that communicate concern for the victim group as well as the target group are more effective in fostering openness toward criticism, rather than defensiveness, in a target group, thus setting the stage for change.

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Objective: Many patients prefer lean physicians to physicians with obesity and place higher credence in their weight management advice. Because genetic information about weight can be viewed as self-serving for individuals with overweight or obesity, physicians with obesity may be discounted when sharing such information. As provision of genetic information regarding weight becomes increasingly common in public health messaging, could a physician’s own weight influence how these messages are received by the public? Methods: In an online survey, 967 participants were randomly assigned a physician profile (lean v. has obesity) with a media interview transcript discussing genetic factors of a common health condition (obesity v. osteoporosis). Results: Participants perceived the physician with obesity who discussed genetic factors in obesity as less trustworthy and less credible. Participants were also less likely to anticipate following her advice on weight-related issues. Participants with higher BMI had less negative perceptions of this physician. Conclusion: Physicians with obesity, when providing public health messaging regarding genetic information about obesity, may be met with distrust and negative attitudes toward the physician.Practical Implications:F uture research should investigate health communication strategies that address this form of weight stigma while accurately conveying genetic factors that contribute to weight.

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