Viewing archives for Dr. Laura Giurge

CEOs Showing Humanity: Human Care Statements in Conference Calls and Stock Market Performance during Crisis

Lauren Howe, Laura M. Giurge, Alexander Wagner and Jochen Menges

Abstract

Conference calls provide opportunities for CEOs to inform market participants (i.e., financial analysts and investors) about their companies’ prospects. Much research has focused on how CEOs speak about business-related topics in these calls, yet surprisingly the literature has not considered how statements that go beyond financial information affect market participants. When we explored archival data of how CEOs of publicly traded U.S.-based companies from the Russell 3000 Index spoke about COVID-19 in conference calls as the pandemic began in 2020, we noticed that about half of CEOs made human care statements that expressed a concern for people, with seemingly little direct financial relevance. However, although these statements were largely generic, vague expressions rather than clear plans, we discovered that the more such statements CEOs made, the better their companies fared on the stock market when stock prices tumbled globally. Follow-up explorations unveiled a negative association between CEO human care statements and stock volatility, meaning that market participants discounted these companies’ future earnings less. Our explorations suggest that it pays off for CEOs to go beyond mere financial information and show some humanity, with implications for downstream theorizing about CEO impression management.

Time Theft: Exposing a Subtle Yet Serious Driver of Socioeconomic Inequality

Jason R. Pierce, Laura M. Giurge and Brad Aeon

Abstract

Socioeconomic inequality is perpetuated and exacerbated by an overlooked yet serious epidemic of time theft: the act of causing others to lose their time without adequate cause, compensation, or consent. We explain why time theft goes unnoticed, how it drives socioeconomic inequality, and what businesses and policymakers can do to address it.

Recognizing and correcting positive bias: The salient victim effect

Emily M. Zitek, Laura M. Giurgeand Isaac H. Smith

Abstract

People seem to have stronger disapproving reactions when they have unfairly suffered from bias than when they have unfairly benefited from it (i.e., they seem less concerned when they have experienced positive bias). Is this because people do not care about the consequences of bias if it has positively affected them, or is it because they fail to notice positive bias? We argue that it is the latter, and that increasing awareness of a victim who has been harmed can “remove the blinders” of the beneficiary of bias. Across seven pre-registered studies of American participants, we tested the effect of a salient victim on people who have experienced positive bias. Our results show that when a victim has been made salient, beneficiaries of bias are more likely to recognize and condemn the positive bias, and they are also more likely to act to correct it. We found this salient victim effect when people reflected on their own positive treatment in society, when they benefited from favoritism in interpersonal interactions, and when they imagined benefiting from nepotism. The effect emerged with both direct and indirect manipulations of the victim. Moreover, the presence of a salient victim spurred more action in those who experienced positive bias even when there was a personal cost. We discuss the contributions of our research to the fairness, morality, and bias literatures.

Nudges can be both autonomy-preserving and effective: evidence from a survey and quasi-field experiment

Henrico van Roekel, Laura M. Giurge, Carina Schott and Lars Tummers

Abstract

Nudges are widely employed tools within organizations, but they are often criticized for harming autonomy and for being ineffective. We assess these two criticisms simultaneously: can nudges be both autonomy-preserving and effective in changing behavior? We developed three nudges – an opinion leader nudge, a rule-of-thumb and self-nudges – to reduce a particularly sticky behavior: email use. In a survey experiment of 4,112 healthcare employees, we tested their effect on perceived autonomy and subjective effectiveness. We also tested traditional policy instruments for comparison. Next, to assess objective effectiveness, we conducted a quasi-field experiment in a large healthcare organization with an estimate of 1,189 active email users. We found that each nudge in isolation, but especially when combined, was perceived to be both autonomy-preserving and effective, and more so than traditional policy instruments like an access limit or a monetary reward. We also found some evidence that the combination of all nudges decreased actual email use. This paper advances the literature by showing how innovations in nudge design improve nudges’ ability to be autonomy-preserving and effective.

Working during non-standard work time undermines intrinsic motivation

Laura M. Giurge and Kaitlin Woolley

Abstract

How do people’s perceptions about when they work affect their intrinsic motivation? We find that working during non-standard work time (weekends/holidays) versus standard work time (Monday-Friday, 9-to-5) undermines people’s intrinsic motivation for their professional and academic pursuits. Working during non-standard work time decreases intrinsic motivation by causing people to consider better uses of their time. That is, people generate more upward counterfactual thoughts, which mediates the effect of work time on reduced intrinsic motivation. As a causal test of this process, increasing consideration of upward counterfactuals during standard work time reduces intrinsic motivation, whereas decreasing consideration of upward counterfactuals during non-standard work time helps employees and students maintain intrinsic motivation for their professional and academic pursuits. Overall, we identify a novel determinant of intrinsic motivation and address a real challenge many people face: How changing work schedules affect interest and enjoyment of work, with important consequences for work outcomes.

Dr. Laura Giurge

Dr. Laura M. Giurge is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at London Business School and a rising scholar in the field of time, happiness, and the future of work. Laura is also a Research Fellow at the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford where she studies how alternative ways of working impact our well-being and productivity. Laura earned her PhD in Management from Erasmus University Rotterdam and two cum laude Master Degrees in Economics and Business and in Human Resources Management from the University of Groningen. Prior to joining LBS, Laura was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Cornell University.

Broadly, her research focuses on understanding how the decisions people make regarding how to spend their time at work – and in their personal life – affect well-being and productivity, in order to learn how we can thrive and live a happier life. Laura is passionate about conducting experimental and behavioural field studies with non-profit and company collaborators around the world. Currently, she is working on a diverse set of projects that examine the psychology behind how employees and organizations set, push, and maintain work and home boundaries. Her most recent work has been published in Harvard Business Review and Nature Human Behaviour.

The Barnes Research Fellowship is supported by Andrew Barnes and Charlotte Lockhart.

Working During Non-Standard Work Time Undermines Intrinsic Motivation

Laura M. Giurge and Kaitlin Woolley

Be Intentional About How You Spend Your Time Off

Harvard Business Review

The evidence is clear: Burnout is on the rise. A common suggestion for preventing burnout is to take regular breaks away from work. But what should those breaks look like if we want to maximize rejuvenation and protect our well-being? It may be surprising to learn, but passive “rest and relaxation” isn’t as effective for recovering from the daily grind as using breaks to accomplish your goals — not your work goals, but your personal goals. Examples include spending time with friends and family, pursuing your hobbies, or even organizing your closet. Whatever your own personal goals are, the important thing is that you lay out a plan for how you envision spending your time during the break. We call this proactive recovery, and we find that it makes people feel happier than passive forms of recovery.

Back in December 2020, one of us surveyed a group of 537 public-sector employees and asked them a simple question: “Do you have any goals for the upcoming winter holiday?” with the answer options “yes” or “no.” We also asked them to indicate how happy they are, which is a commonly used measure of subjective well-being.

We found that employees who set goals for their holidays indicated being 8% happier than those who didn’t. This difference in happiness emerged regardless of gender, age, employment, income, marital status, frequency of working from home, or number of dependents…

The Curse of Off-Hours Email

The Wall Street Journal

Imagine it’s the end of the workday and you have a non-urgent work question to ask a colleague. You know this colleague has already gone home for the day, but you send off an email to them anyway.

Now ask yourself this: Do you expect a response from your colleague right away?

Probably not. But does your colleague understand that?

Research that we’ve just published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes suggests that the answer is “no.” Worse, our inability to recognize this fact when we shoot off an email often makes us complicit in an “always on” work culture that contributes to burnout.

Moral credentials and the 2020 democratic presidential primary: No evidence that endorsing female candidates licenses people to favor men

Laura M. Giurge, Eva Hsin-Lian Lin, Daniel A. Effron

Endorsing Obama in 2008 licensed some Americans to favor Whites over Blacks––an example of moral self-licensing (Effron, Cameron, & Monin, 2009). Could endorsing a female presidential candidate in 2020–21 similarly license Americans to favor men at the expense of women? Two high-powered, pre-registered experiments found no evidence for this possibility. We manipulated whether Democrat participants had an opportunity to endorse a female Democratic candidate if she ran against a male candidate (i.e., Trump in Study 1, N = 2143; an anti-Trump Republican or independent candidate in Study 2, N = 2228). Then, participants read about a stereotypically masculine job and indicated whether they thought a man should fill it. Contrary to predictions, we found that endorsing a female Democrat did not increase participants’ tendency to favor men over women for the job. We discuss implications for the robustness and generalizability of moral self-licensing.