Unmixed signals: How reputation and status affect alliance formation

Stern, Ithai; Dukerich, Janet M.; Zajac, Edward J.

doi:10.1002/smj.2116

Cited by 181 publications

(146 citation statements)

References 93 publications

(110 reference statements)

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“…If an actor has not already established his or her position in the status hierarchy, they more likely to be discounted in the future, even when their performance equals that of their high 31 status counterparts. Thus, status bias "unjustifiably victimize[s]" low status actors (Merton 1968: 59), preventing them from being treated as if they were operating in an even playing field.Our findings extend our understanding of the halo effect by showing that status is especially likely to lead to over-recognition of quality when status and reputation are aligned (Stern et al 2013). The importance of aligning expectations in the evaluator's mind may be one reason that other scholars have found that status has its greatest effect on economic performance advantages when there is consistency among multiple status signals (Zhao and Zhou 2011).…”

supporting

confidence: 72%

Seeing Stars: Matthew Effects and Status Bias in Major League Baseball Umpiring

2014

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This paper tests the assumption that evaluators are biased to positively evaluate high status individuals, irrespective of quality. Using unique data from Major League Baseball umpires' evaluation of pitch quality, which allow us to observe the difference in a pitch's objective quality and in its perceived quality as judged by the umpire, we show that umpires are more likely to over-recognize quality by expanding the strike zone, and less likely to under-recognize quality by missing pitches in the strike zone for high status pitchers. Ambiguity and the pitcher's reputation as a "control pitcher" moderate the effect of status on umpire judgment. Further, we show that umpire errors resulting from status bias lead to actual performance differences for the pitcher and team.Keywords: Status, Bias, Performance Forthcoming in Management Science2 Social scientists have long understood status to be an indicator of hierarchical position and prestige that helps individuals and organizations procure resources and opportunities for advancement (e.g., Whyte 1943;Podolny 2001;Sauder, Lynn, and Podolny 2012). Status markers, like ranking systems in education (Espeland and Sauder 2007) or awards and prizes (Rossman et al. 2010), accentuate quality differences among actors and create greater socio-economic inequality. Past research has advanced our understanding of how status hierarchies emerge and persist (Berger, Rosenholtz, and Zelditch 1980;Webster and Hysom 1998;Ridgeway and Correll 2006), on the psychological rewards of status attainment (e.g., Willer 2009;Anderson et al. 2012), on the association of status with characteristics such as race and gender (Ridgeway 1991), or on status outcomes, such as the accumulation of power, price and wage differentials, and other economic and social benefits (Podolny 1993;Benjamin and Podolny 1999;Thye 2000;Correll et al. 2007;Stuart, Hoang, and Hybels 1999;Bothner, Kim, and Smith 2011;Pearce 2011;Waguespack and Sorenson, 2011).In economic sociology, the classic statement of self-reproducing advantages is Robert Merton's (1968) theory of the Matthew Effect. Underlying the Matthew Effect is an assumption that individuals are biased to positively evaluate high status individuals irrespective of quality, and that this bias, rather than actual quality differences, perpetuates inequality between high status and low status actors. Scholars in status characteristics theory have made the case that this bias results from individuals' expectations and prior beliefs about competence and quality (Anderson et al. 2001;Ridgeway and Correll 2006;Berger et al. 1977;Ridgeway and Berger 1986), and experimental and audit studies have identified status characteristics as a mechanism that underlies discriminatory evaluations of low status individuals (e.g., Correll et al. 2007).Despite the evidence emanating from the experimental research in status characteristics studies, scholars studying the Matthew Effect in real world settings have had a more difficult time demonstrating that status bias is a mech...

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supporting

confidence: 72%

Seeing Stars: Matthew Effects and Status Bias in Major League Baseball Umpiring

2014

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“…Second, we expand recent attempts to examine the interplay between reputation and other types of signals (Ertug & Castellucci, 2013;Jensen & Roy, 2008;Stern, Dukerich, & Zajac, 2014) by showing that such interplay is dependent on contextual constraints imposed by the level of accountability audiences face. As we elaborate in our discussion section, these findings have broad and important theoretical and practical implications for research on reputation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 72%

“…These accounts imply that the effects of reputation might be independent of, and not contingent on, that of status. However, more recent research suggests that reputation and status can enhance one another because together they provide additional information that reduces uncertainty (Stern et al, 2014). Our stance is that the presence and degree of such interplay between reputation and status is audience-specific.…”

Section: Theoretical Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…This approach highlights the relevance and value of studying factors that moderate reputation effects, particularly when different types of signals for evaluating an actor are available (e.g., Pollock & Gulati, 2007). Studies have increasingly sought to understand the relationship between actors' reputations and status (e.g., Chandler, Haunschild, Rhee, & Beckman, 2013;Ertug & Castellucci, 2013;Jensen & Roy, 2008;Pollock, Lee, Jin, & Lashley, forthcoming;Sorenson, 2014;Stern et al, 2014). The emerging consensus in this research is that although both reputation and status signal unobserved qualities, they differ because reputation is based on prior accomplishments and behavior, whereas status is based on an actor's position in a social hierarchy that both reflects and influences how the actor is acknowledged by others (Sauder, Lynn, & Podolny, 2012).…”

Section: Audience-specific Reputations In the Contemporary Art Fieldmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As distinct sources of information about an actor's unobserved qualities, the joint consideration of reputation and status enables an evaluator to confirm the information each conveys. Therefore, these two signals reinforce one another when they provide consistent information -for example, enjoying a good reputation and high status or having a bad reputation and low status (Stern et al, 2014). However, research suggests that this complementary relationship might not always hold.…”

Section: Audience-specific Reputations In the Contemporary Art Fieldmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Art of Representation: How Audience-specific Reputations Affect Success in the Contemporary Art Field

Ertug

Yogev

Lee

et al. 2016

AMJ

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AcknowledgmentWe would like to thank Tim Pollock and the three anonymous reviewers for their excellent suggestions and guidance. We would also like to thank Martin Gargiulo, Matteo Prato, Heeyon Kim, Abhijith G. Acharya, Fabrizio Castellucci, Yi Tang, and Francois Collet for their valuable feedback, as well as participants at presentations at the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation and at Singapore Management University. We would also like to express our gratitude for the financial support we have received from the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research 2 THE ART OF REPRESENTATION: HOW AUDIENCE-SPECIFIC REPUTATIONS AFFECT SUCCESS IN THE CONTEMPORARY ART FIELD ABSTRACTWe study the effects of actors' audience-specific reputations on their levels of success with different audiences in the same field. Extending recent work that has emphasized the presence of multiple audiences with different concerns, we demonstrate that considering audience specificity leads to an improved understanding of reputation effects. Using data on emerging artists in the field of contemporary art from 2001 to 2010, we investigate the manner in which artists' audience-specific reputations affect their subsequent success with two distinct audiences: museums and galleries. Our findings suggest that audience-specific reputations have systematically different effects with respect to success with museums and galleries. Our findings also illuminate the extent to which audience-specific reputations are relevant for emerging research on the contingent effects of reputation. In particular, our findings support our predictions that audiences differ from one another in terms of the extent to which other signals (specifically, status and interaction with other audiences) enhance or reduce the value of audience-specific reputations. Our study thus advances theory by providing empirical evidence for the value of incorporating audience-specific reputations into the general study of reputation.3

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How Do Environmental Violation Events Harm Corporate Reputation?

et al. 2014

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This study, based on attribution theory, provides empirical evidence for how environmental violation events (EVEs) damage corporate reputation, using media reputation as a proxy. Hypotheses are developed to address the influences of violating firms' past environmental behaviors and ownership on the reputational effect of EVEs. The results show that firms with a history of unfavorable behaviors (precedent environmental violation) are deemed by the media to be more culpable for adverse environmental events and consequently suffer more damage to their reputation, while for firms with a favorable environmental record (environmental awards and honors gained) the reputational harm of an EVE is alleviated to some extent. EVEs cause more reputational damage to foreign-owned enterprises than to domestic-owned firms. These findings reveal that certain company behaviors could exert an indirect effect on a firm's reputation by influencing public perception of later relevant behaviors, and imply a discriminatory treatment in a host country for foreign-owned enterprises.

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Unmixed signals: How reputation and status affect alliance formation

Cited by 181 publications

References 93 publications

Seeing Stars: Matthew Effects and Status Bias in Major League Baseball Umpiring

Seeing Stars: Matthew Effects and Status Bias in Major League Baseball Umpiring

The Art of Representation: How Audience-specific Reputations Affect Success in the Contemporary Art Field

How Do Environmental Violation Events Harm Corporate Reputation?

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