Research

Working Papers

Drilldown Data Access Rates and Managerial Target Achievement

Job Market Paper

In this study, I use proprietary click-level data on the rate at which frontline managers (FLMs) access a performance dashboard and disaggregated performance information underlying top-level KPIs (“drilldown data”) at a large U.S. footwear and apparel retailer. I address the debate on the value of detailed decision-oriented information and the interaction between the decision-supporting and monitoring roles of performance information by showing that variation in FLM drilldown access rates is associated with higher performance target achievement, consistent with FLMs using the drilldown data to support their operational decision-making. I combine my data on access rates and cross-sectional surveys conducted at the retailer to show that the impact of superiors’ use of data for supervisory purposes on FLMs’ use of drilldown data depends on the purpose for which the drilldown data was designed and the ways in which their superiors use it.

Links: Video Summary

Motivating from the Heights: A Field Experiment on Top Managers Visiting the Front Line

Forthcoming, Review of Accounting Studies

With Pablo Casas-Arce and Asís Martínez-Jerez.

We study the motivational effects of top managers' visits to front-line employees through a field experiment. Our results indicate that managing by walking around can provide workers positive motivation, separate from the monitoring and learning effects of managerial field visits previously identified in the literature.

Links: SSRN | Publisher | Video Summary

Media Coverage: Forbes

Bout of Sales: Impact of Alignment between Leadership Style and Incentive Systems

With Pablo Casas-Arce and Asís Martínez-Jerez.

Using a field experiment at a large retail chain, we provide evidence that managers' leadership styles moderate the effectiveness of different types of incentives. Store managers using the servant leadership style are more able to leverage non-fungible team incentives, such as a store outing, than non-servant leader managers.

Emissions-Related Management Controls and Climate-Related Risks

With Carolyn Deller and Shawn Kim.

We study firms’ design choices with respect to three emissions-related management controls—emissions reduction targets, emissions incentives, and internal carbon pricing—and how these control choices are associated with firms’ climate-related risk exposures. Using survey data from CDP, we characterize the ways in which firms design their emissions-related management controls by using principal factor analysis to identify the underlying dimensions of these controls. We also identify groups of firms facing similar levels and types of climate-related risks and show that firms in each group vary the management control factors we identify in predictable ways. Finally, we find suggestive evidence that any performance implications of emissions-related management control usage may be conditional on the appropriate choice of controls given a firm’s climate-related risk exposure and fundamentals.

Work in Progress

Moderators of Control System Cascade Effects

With Pablo Casas-Arce, Christopher Ittner, and Asís Martínez-Jerez.

We shed light on the phenomenon of cascade effects - the similar use of control practices by managers and their superiors - by investigating how theoretically-motivated economic, psychological, and sociological factors moderate these effects.

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