Underdogs and One-Hit Wonders: When Is Overcoming Adversity Impressive?

Published Online:https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4630

References

  • Arthur B (1989) Competing technologies, increasing returns, and lock-in by historical events. Econom. J. (London) 99(394):116–131.Google Scholar
  • Ashworth J, Heyndels B (2007) Selection bias and peer effects in team sports: The effect of age grouping on earnings of German soccer players. J. Sports Econom. 8(4):355–377.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Audia PG, Greve HR (2021) Organizational Learning from Performance Feedback: A Behavioral Perspective on Multiple Goals: A Multiple Goals Perspective (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK).CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Audia PG, Locke EA, Smith KG (2000) The paradox of success: An archival and a laboratory study of strategic persistence following radical environmental change. Acad. Management J. 43(5):837–853.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Baker G, Gibbons R, Murphy KJ (1994) Subjective performance measures in optimal incentive contracts. Quart. J. Econom. 109(4):1125–1156.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Baker GP, Jensen MC, Murphy KJ (1988) Compensation and incentives: Practice vs. theory. J. Finance 43(3):593–616.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Barnett WP (1997) The dynamics of competitive intensity. Admin. Sci. Quart. 20(4):128–160.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Barnett WP, Hansen MT (1996) The red queen in organizational evolution. Strategic Management J. 17(S1):139–157.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Barnsley RH, Thompson AH (1988) Birthdate and success in minor hockey: The key to the NHL. Canadian J. Behav. Sci. 20(2):167–176.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Benson A, Li D, Shue K (2019) Promotions and the Peter principle. Quart. J. Econom. 134(4):2085–2134.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Bol JC, Smith SD (2011) Spillover effects in subjective performance evaluation: Bias and the asymmetric influence of controllability. Accounting Rev. 86(4):1213–1230.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Cameron SV, Heckman JJ (1998) Life cycle schooling and dynamic selection bias: Models and evidence for five cohorts of American males. J. Political Econom. 106(2):262–333.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Castilla EJ (2008) Gender, race, and meritocracy in organizational careers. Amer. J. Sociol. 113(6):1479–1526.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Chatterji A, Delecourt S, Hasan S, Koning R (2019) When does advice impact startup performance? Strategic Management J. 40(3):331–356.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • De Vany A (2004) Hollywood Economics: How Extreme Uncertainty Shapes the Film Industry (Routledge, New York).CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Deaner RO, Lowen A, Cobley S (2013) Born at the wrong time: Selection bias in the NHL draft. PLoS One 8(2):e57753.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Denrell J, Liu C (2012) Top performers are not the most impressive when extreme performance indicates unreliability. Proc. National Acad. Sci. USA 109(24):9331–9336.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Denrell J, Fang C, Liu C (2019) In search of behavioral opportunities from misattributions of luck. Acad. Management Rev. 44(4):896–915.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Desai V (2015) Learning through the distribution of failures within an organization: Evidence from heart bypass surgery performance. Acad. Management J. 58(4):1032–1050.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Dörner D (1996) The Logic of Failure: Strategic Thinking for Complex Situations (Metropolitan Books, New York).Google Scholar
  • Duckworth AL, Peterson C, Matthews MD, Kelly DR (2007) Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals. J. Personality Soc. Psych. 92(6):1087–1101.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Fischhoff B, Beyth-Marom R (1983) Hypothesis evaluation from a Bayesian perspective. Psych. Rev. 90(3):239.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Frank RH, Cook PJ (1995) The Winner-Take-All Society: Why the Few at the Top Get So Much More Than the Rest of Us (The Free Press, New York).Google Scholar
  • Fumarco L, Gibbs BG, Jarvis JA, Rossi G (2017) The relative age effect reversal among the National Hockey League elite. PLoS One 12(8):1–16.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Goldschmied NP, Vandello JA (2012) The future is bright: The underdog label, availability, and optimism. Basic Appl. Soc. Psych. 34(1):34–43.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Gorard S (2010) Serious doubts about school effectiveness. British Edu. Res. J. 36(5):745–766.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Gould R (2002) The origins of status hierarchies: A formal theory and empirical test. Amer. J. Sociol. 107(5):1143–1178.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Guler I (2007) Throwing good money after bad? Political and institutional influences on sequential decision making in the venture capital industry. Admin. Sci. Quart. 52(2):248–285.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Haunschild PR, Sullivan BN (2002) Learning from complexity: Effects of prior accidents and incidents on airlines’ learning. Admin. Sci. Quart. 47(4):609–643.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Hendricks K, Sorensen A, Wiseman T (2012) Observational learning and demand for search goods. Amer. Econom. J. Microeconom. 4(1):1–31.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Holmstrom B (1979) Moral hazard and observability. Bell J. Econom. 10(1):74–91.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Holmstrom B (1982) Moral hazard in teams. Bell J. Econom. 13(2):324–340.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Holmström B (2017) Pay for performance and beyond. Amer. Econom. Rev. 107(7):1753–1777.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Jenter D, Kanaan F (2015) CEO turnover and relative performance evaluation. J. Finance 70(5):2155–2184.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Karlin S, Rubin H (1956) The theory of decision procedures for distributions with monotone likelihood ratio. Ann. Math. Statist. 27(2):272–299.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Kim JY, Miner AS (2007) Vicarious learning from the failures and near-failures of others: Evidence from the US commercial banking industry. Acad. Management J. 50(3):687–714.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Kim JY, Kim JY, Miner AS (2009) Organizational learning from extreme performance experience: The impact of success and recovery experience. Organ. Sci. 20(6):958–978.LinkGoogle Scholar
  • Lieberman M, Montgomery D (1988) First mover advantages. Strategic Management J. 9(S1):41–58.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Liu C (2021) Why do firms fail to engage diversity? A behavioral strategy perspective. Organ. Sci. 32(5):1193–1209.LinkGoogle Scholar
  • Lynn FB, Podolny JM, Tao L (2009) A sociological (de)construction of the relationship between status and quality. Amer. J. Sociol. 115(3):755–804.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Merton RK (1968) The Matthew effect in science. Science 159(3810):56–63.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Meyer M (1991) Learning from coarse information: Biased contests and career profiles. Rev. Econom. Stud. 58(1):15–41.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Miklós-Thal J, Zhang J (2013) (De)marketing to manage consumer quality inferences. J. Marketing Res. 50(1):55–69.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Morris MW, Larrick RP (1995) When one cause casts doubt on another: A normative analysis of discounting in causal attribution. Psych. Rev. 102(2):331–355.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Musch J, Grondin S (2001) Unequal competition as an impediment to personal development: A review of the relative age effect in sport. Developement Rev. 21(2):147–167.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Nurmohamed S (2020) The underdog effect: When low expectations increase performance. Acad. Management J. 63(4):1106–1133.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Ouchi WG, Maguire MA (1975) Organizational control: Two functions. Admin. Sci. Quart. 42(1):559–569.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Perrow C (1984) Normal Accidents: Living with High-risk Technologies (Basic Books, New York).Google Scholar
  • Pollock TG, Lee PM, Jin K, Lashley K (2015) (Un)tangled: Exploring the asymmetric coevolution of new venture capital firms’ reputation and status. Admin. Sci. Quart. 60(3):482–517.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Puffer SM, Weintrop JB (1991) Corporate performance and CEO turnover: The role of performance expectations. Admin. Sci. Quart. 36(1):1–19.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Rahmandad H, Gary MS (2020) Delays impair learning and can drive convergence to inefficient strategies. Organ. Sci., ePub ahead of print December 15, https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2020.1405.LinkGoogle Scholar
  • Romann M, Cobley S (2015) Relative age effects in athletic sprinting and corrective adjustments as a solution for their removal. PLoS One 10(4):e0122988.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Ross L, Nisbett RE (1991) The Person and the Situation (McGraw Hill, New York).Google Scholar
  • Rudolph JW, Repenning NP (2002) Disaster dynamics: Understanding the role of quantity in organizational collapse. Admin. Sci. Quart. 47(1):1–30.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Salganik MJ, Watts DJ (2008) Leading the herd astray: An experimental study of self-fulfilling prophecies in an artificial cultural market. Soc. Psych. Quart. 71(4):338–355.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Salganik M, Dodds P, Watts DJ (2006) Experimental study of inequality and unpredictability in an artificial cultural market. Science 311(5762):854–856.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Scopelliti I, Min HL, McCormick E, Kassam KS, Morewedge CK (2018) Individual differences in correspondence bias: Measurement, consequences, and correction of biased interpersonal attributions. Management Sci. 64(4):1879–1910.LinkGoogle Scholar
  • Siegel J, Pyun L, Cheon B (2019) Multinational firms, labor market discrimination, and the capture of outsider’s advantage by exploiting the social divide. Admin. Sci. Quart. 64(2):370–397.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Sørensen M (2007) How smart is smart money? A two-sided matching model of venture capital. J. Finance 62(6):2725–2762.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Stan M, Vermeulen F (2013) Selection at the gate: Difficult cases, spillovers, and organizational learning. Organ. Sci. 24(3):796–812.LinkGoogle Scholar
  • Strang D, Patterson K (2014) Asymmetries in experiential and vicarious feedback: Lessons from the hiring and firing of baseball managers. Sociol. Sci. 1(1):178–198.Google Scholar
  • Swift SA, Moore DA, Sharek ZS, Gino F (2013) Inflated applicants: Attribution errors in performance evaluation by professionals. PLOS One 8(7):e69258.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Teeselink BK, van den Assem MJ, van Dolder D (2022) Does losing lead to winning? An empirical analysis for four sports. Management Sci., ePub ahead of print March 30, https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4372.Google Scholar
  • Van de Rijt A (2019) Self-correcting dynamics in social influence processes. Amer. J. Sociol. 124(5):1468–1495.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Vandello JA, Goldschmied NP, Richards DAR (2007) The appeal of the underdog. Personality Soc. Psych. Bull. 33(12):1603–1616.Google Scholar
  • Weick KE, Roberts KH (1993) Collective mind in organizations: Heedful interrelating on flight decks. Admin. Sci. Quart. 38(3):357–381.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Weick KE, Sutcliffe KM (2001) Managing the Unexpected (Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA).Google Scholar
  • Wellman MP, Henrion M (1993) Explaining ‘explaining away.’ IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Machine Intelligence 15(3):287–292.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • Zunino D, Dushnitsky G, van Praag M (2022) How do investors evaluate past entrepreneurial failure? Unpacking failure due to lack of skill vs. bad luck. Acad. Management J. 65(4):1083–1109.Google Scholar
INFORMS site uses cookies to store information on your computer. Some are essential to make our site work; Others help us improve the user experience. By using this site, you consent to the placement of these cookies. Please read our Privacy Statement to learn more.