Asymmetries in Experiential and Vicarious Feedback

Lessons from the Hiring and Firing of Baseball Managers

Datos Bibliográficos

ID13090523
AutoresDavid Strang (Cornell University, autor de correspondencia), Kelly L Patterson (0000-0001-8111-9668, Southern California University for Professional Studies)
Año2014
Volumen1
Páginas179-198
Fecha de publicación2014-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSociological Science (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2330-6696 • E-ISSN: 2330-6696
EditorialSociety for Sociological Science (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.15195/v1.a13
OpenAlexW2147834456
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas37

We examine experiential and vicarious feedback in the hiring and firing of baseball managers. Realized outcomes play a large role in both decisions; the probability that a manager will be fired is a function of the team's win-loss record, and a manager is quicker to be rehired if his teams had won more in the past. There are substantial asymmetries, however, in the fine structure of the two feedback functions. The rate at which managers are fired is powerfully shaped by recent outcomes, falls with success and rises with failure, and adjusts for history-based expectations. By contrast, hiring reflects a longer-term perspective that emphasizes outcomes over the manager's career as well as the most recent campaign, rewards success but does not penalize failure, and exhibits no adjustment for historical expectations. We explain these asymmetries in terms of the disparate displays of rationality that organizations enact in response to their own outcomes versus those of others. Experiential feedback is conditioned by a logic of accountability, vicarious feedback by a logic of emulation

Accountability · Corporate governance · Economics · Emulation · Experiential learning · Function (biology · Management · Perspective (graphical · Political science · Public relations · Rationality · Computer Science · Law · Management and Organizational Studies · Management Theory and Practice · Psychology · Social Psychology · Sports Analytics and Performance