Value-based Leadership

Abstract : The strength of personal values and how these penetrate firm organization is measured through a survey of 1500 Danish CEOs. We construct a measure of value-based leadership and investigate the impact on firm outcomes and firm policies. First, value-based leadership is more common in family firms and with female leadership, but not correlated to leaders' IQ nor to management practices. Second, value-based leadership is positively correlated to firm performance. Causal evidence is provided through the analysis of CEO changes and CEO hospitalizations. Third, value-based leaders build more resilient organizations in a pandemic crisis and generate less conflicts, lower employee turnover and have a flatter organizational structure in normal times. Taken together, leaders' personal values and how they spread through organizations are important factors in explaining the value they bring to their firms.

---

Managing with Style? Micro-evidence on the Allocation of Managerial Attention

Abstract : How does task expertise affect the allocation of attention? Our theory argues that when attention is scarce, expertise and attention are complements: a manager optimally focuses her attention on tasks in which she has relatively more expertise; she "manages with style." In contrast, when attention is abundant, attention and expertise become substitutes: a manager shifts her attention towards tasks she has less expertise in; she "manages against her style." Using micro-level data on managers from two unrelated companies, and employing various measures of time stress and managerial attention, we find converging and supporting evidence. A manager’s attention capacity determines whether she "manages with style," or "against it." While current behavioral approaches view "managing with style" as prevalent and biased, our theory and findings suggest, instead, that it is contingent and optimal.

---

Workload, Time Use and Efficiency

Abstract : Existing empirical research suggests worker output and workload are positively correlated, but how the two are related is not yet well understood. We study how workload affects performance outcomes and how workers adjust labor input and organize tasks in response to workload. We do so using a dynamic multi-tasking model with labor-leisure and quality-quantity choices in which the production environment allows for efficiencies of scale. We find that in heterogeneous contexts, where there is more learning within projects than within the same step across projects, it is optimal to work sequentially, completing one project before starting the next. In contrast, in homogeneous contexts, in which learning within the same step across projects is relatively stronger, it is optimal to work in batches, completing the same step across projects. Output increases with workload in either context, but while timeliness may decrease in heterogeneous contexts, quality and timeliness are expected to increase in homogeneous contexts because higher workload increases the efficiency of batch work. We provide empirical evidence of the theoretical predictions using detailed workload, productivity, time and internet use data of insurance claims examiners across two departments that handle heterogeneous and homogeneous claims respectively, and who face plausibly exogenous variation in workload. We show evidence consistent with examiners working sequentially in the heterogeneous context and working in batches in the homogeneous context. A one standard deviation increase in workload increases output by 2.8% in the heterogeneous context and 9.3% in the homogeneous context, while tardiness decreases and quality increases in the latter context only.

---