Psychological Pressure and the Right to Determine the Moves in Dynamic Tournaments – Evidence From a Natural Field Experiment
26 Pages Posted: 21 Sep 2020 Last revised: 24 Feb 2021
There are 3 versions of this paper
Psychological Pressure and the Right to Determine the Moves in Dynamic Tournaments – Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment
Psychological Pressure and the Right to Determine the Moves in Dynamic Tournaments – Evidence From a Natural Field Experiment
Psychological Pressure and the Right to Determine the Moves in Dynamic Tournaments: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment
Date Written: August 23, 2020
Abstract
In this paper, we show that the right to determine the sequence of moves in a dynamic team tournament improves the chances of winning the contest. Because studying dynamic team tournaments – like R&D races – with interim feedback is difficult with company data, we examine decisions of highly paid professionals in soccer penalty shootouts and show that teams whose captains can decide about the shooting sequence are more likely to win the shootout. So, managerial decisions matter for outcomes of dynamic tournaments and we discuss potential reasons for this finding.
Keywords: Dynamic tournament, sports professionals, psychological pressure, value of decision rights, penalty shoot-outs, behavioral economics
JEL Classification: C93, D00, D81, D91, Z20
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation