Global Virtual Team (GVT) member diversity provides many advantages but also poses many challenges. Diversity comes in different forms that each has different effects on GVT dynamics and performance. Past research typically explored the effect of only one type of diversity at a time. Using multi-source, multi-wave data from 5728 individuals working in 804 consulting project GVTs, the present study is unique in that it explores and compares the effects of different forms of team member diversity on different aspects of GVT effectiveness in a single sample. It proposes a refined theoretical model that differentiates between the effects of personal versus contextual diversity and articulates how these distinct forms of diversity affect different aspects of GVT effectiveness (i.e., task outcomes versus psychological outcomes). The results reveal that (1) team member diversity in general has a substantial effect on GVT effectiveness; (2) contextual diversity has a positive effect on task outcomes; and (3) personal diversity has a negative effect on psychological outcomes. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

We study the dynamic pricing problem faced by a monopolistic retailer who sells a storable product to forward-looking consumers. In this framework, the two major pricing policies (or mechanisms) studied in the literature are the preannounced (commitment) pricing policy and the contingent (threat or history dependent) pricing policy. We analyse and compare these pricing policies in the setting where the good can be purchased along a finite time horizon in indivisible atomic quantities. First, we show that, given linear storage costs, the retailer can compute an optimal preannounced pricing policy in polynomial time by solving a dynamic program. Moreover, under such a policy, we show that consumers do not need to store units in order to anticipate price rises. Second, under the contingent pricing policy rather than the preannounced pricing mechanism, (i) prices could be lower, (ii) retailer revenues could be higher, and (iii) consumer surplus could be higher. This result is surprising, in that these three facts are in complete contrast to the case of a retailer selling divisible storable goods (Dudine et al. in Am Econ Rev 96(5):1706–1719, 2006). Third, we quantify exactly how much more profitable a contingent policy could be with respect to a preannounced policy. Specifically, for a market with N consumers, a contingent policy can produce a multiplicative factor of Ω(logN) more revenues than a preannounced policy, and this bound is tight.

We study the assortment optimization problem under the Sequential Multinomial Logit (SML), a discrete choice model that generalizes the Multinomial Logit (MNL). Under the SML model, products are partitioned into two levels, to capture differences in attractiveness, brand awareness and, or visibility of the products in the market. When a consumer is presented with an assortment of products, she first considers products in the first level and, if none of them is purchased, products in the second level are considered. This model is a special case of the Perception-Adjusted Luce Model (PALM) recently proposed by Echenique et al. (2018). It can explain many behavioral phenomena such as the attraction, compromise, similarity effects and choice overload which cannot be explained by the MNL model or any discrete choice model based on random utility. In particular, the SML model allows violations to regularity which states that the probability of choosing a product cannot increase if the offer set is enlarged. This paper shows that the seminal concept of revenue-ordered assortment sets, which contain an optimal assortment under the MNL model, can be generalized to the SML model. More precisely, the paper proves that all optimal assortments under the SML are revenue-ordered by level, a natural generalization of revenue-ordered assortments that contains, at most, a quadratic number of assortments. As a corollary, assortment optimization under the SML is polynomial-time solvable.

We study the uncommitted durable goods monopoly problem when there are finitely many consumers, a finite horizon, and no discounting. In particular we characterize the set of strong-Markov subgame perfect equilibria that satisfy the skimming property. We show that in any such equilibrium the profits are not less than static monopoly profits; and at most the static monopoly profits plus the monopoly price. When each consumer is small relative to the market, profits are then approximately the same as those of a static monopolist which sets a single price. Finally, we extend the equilibrium characterization to games with an arbitrary discount factor.

This study investigates the influence of employees' perception of managerial breach of the normative relational contract (i.e. the psychological relational contract at the group level) on workplace performance. Many employees in Australia are employed on a permanent or continuing basis and have normative relational contracts whose terms are embedded in human resource practices. We use normative relational contract theory to hypothesise that where there is a mutually recognised high-quality normative relational contract – a strong contract – the emotional bonds of loyalty that are developed by collective sense-making constrained negative reactions to breach. We also hypothesise that, where managers offer high-quality contract terms that are not recognised by employees, the failure to elicit loyalty means that breach has negative performance consequences. Panel data are obtained from a two-stage national, multi-source study of employees (n = 1,733) and senior human resource managers (n = 57). Results from hierarchical moderator regression analyses support the hypotheses. They demonstrate that a strong normative relational contract ‘buffers’ employees’ negative responses to breach.

This study investigates the antecedents and consequences of organization-level inclusion climate. A national sample of human resource decision-makers from 100 organizations described their firms' formal diversity management programs; 3,229 employees reported their perceptions of, and reactions to, their employers' diversity management. Multilevel analyses demonstrate that identity-conscious programs (programs that target specific identity groups) generate an inclusion climate. Moreover, the analyses provide evidence of multilevel mediation: In organizations with an inclusion climate, individual employees perceive the organization as fulfilling its diversity management obligations and respond with higher levels of affective commitment. This study represents an important step toward understanding how a shared perception of organizational inclusiveness develops and how inclusion climate facilitates the achievement of diversity management objectives. The findings also shed light on the important role of identity-conscious programs in promoting organizational commitment within a diverse workforce.

Self-help books with career advice for women who aspire to leadership are popular. This popularity is somewhat surprising, in that the advice appears to take us back to the “fix the women” approach to career advancement of the 1960s and 1970s. Sheryl Sandberg’s (2013)Lean In is a vivid example of this popular genre. In this paper, we use Sandberg’s book to examine why a focus on personal agency is resonating with so many women. We explain the success of Lean In from the working woman’s perspective, comparing and contrasting the academic and popular literatures. We then reflect on the relevance of individual action as a catalyst for change in relation to the more difficult-to-change barriers to women’s advancement at the interpersonal, organizational, and societal levels. We conclude by reflecting on what the popularity of the self-help literature tells scholars about future research directions and the dissemination of their findings.

Despite the prevalence and value of self-managed teams, questions remain about the factors that influence how team members perform in contexts where there is no formal leader to give advice and provide support. Drawing on social network, diversity and personality theories, this study enhances our understanding of the role of individual and group factors in shaping individuals' performance in these teams. Based on three time-lagged data collections, including two surveys from 70 self-managed project teams, we found that conscientious team members perform better because they have more instrumental network ties (i.e., they provide task advice). We also found that having more expressive ties (i.e., being liked) compensates when a team member is not able to give advice, most likely because s/he provides more socio-emotional support to team members. Finally, expressive ties are more important in gender homogenous teams, possibly because socio-emotional support has greater value when from similar team mates.

Since the global financial crisis (GFC), financial institutions and practitioners in Australia, New Zealand and Asia have come under scrutiny for a range of ethical transgressions leading to industry scandal, as have their more well-known counterparts in the United States and United Kingdom. Some scandals were caused by people who – driven by greed and the demands of a complex, fast-paced industry – chose to behave unethically. However, evidence from social psychology points to an alternative explanation: a good deal of unethical behaviour is also unconscious. In A Question of Ethics, we draw on themes and findings from various industry scandals to examine contributing factors at the structural, social and individual levels that influence ethical conduct, and how these may be distorted by what social psychologists refer to as cognitive biases. We present data from a six-country survey of banking and financial services industry practitioners, which explores attitudes towards questionable practices and seeks views about the potential for ethical improvement.

We study a trial-offer market where consumers may purchase one of two competing products. Consumer preferences are affected by the products quality, their appeal, and their popularity. While the asymptotic convergence or stationary states of these, and related dynamical systems, has been vastly studied, the literature regarding the transitory dynamics remains surprisingly sparse. To fill this gap, we derive a system of Ordinary Differential Equations, which is solved exactly to gain insight into the roles played by product qualities and appeals in the market behavior. We observe a logarithmic tradeoff between quality and appeal for medium and long-term marketing strategies: The expected market shares remain constant if a decrease in quality is followed by an exponential increase in the product appeal. However, for short time horizons, the trade-off is linear. Finally, we study the variability of the dynamics through Monte Carlo simulations and discover that low appeals may result in high levels of variability. The model results suggest effective marketing strategies for short and long time horizons and emphasize the significance of advertising early in the market life to increase sales and predictability.

We propose a model of interdependent scheduling games in which each player controls a set of services that they schedule independently. A player is free to schedule his own services at any time; however, each of these services only begins to accrue reward for the player when all predecessor services, which may or may not be controlled by the same player, have been activated. This model, where players have interdependent services, is motivated by the problems faced in planning and coordinating large-scale infrastructures, e.g., restoring electricity and gas to residents after a natural disaster or providing medical care in a crisis when different agencies are responsible for the delivery of staff, equipment, and medicine. We undertake a game-theoretic analysis of this setting and in particular consider the issues of welfare maximization, computing best responses, Nash dynamics, and existence and computation of Nash equilibria.