Throwing Curveballs: Unpacking Surprising Questions in Evaluative Settings and Probing their Origins 

58 Pages Posted: 10 Jul 2024

See all articles by Nandil Bhatia

Nandil Bhatia

Columbia University - Columbia Business School, Management

Wei Cai

Columbia Business School

Sameer B. Srivastava

University of California, Berkeley

Date Written: June 30, 2024

Abstract

From the interview room to the press room, much of organizational life unfolds in evaluative contexts wherein evaluatees present information that positions themselves in a favorable light, while evaluators ask penetrating questions to evaluate these claims. Although some questions are readily addressed, others are surprising in ways that can unsettle even a carefully crafted presentation. We propose that questions can be surprising in two analytically distinct ways: when they are off-topic and when they are unexpected. We argue that questions that are on-topic but unexpected are most likely to be disruptive. We refer to such questions as curveballs and examine the situations under which they arise. Whereas prior work on interpersonal evaluation focuses on actor-and interaction-level explanations, we consider the role of a structural property: the information environment. We theorize that evaluators are more likely to pose curveball questions when there is a dearth, rather than abundance, of public information about the evaluatee. To evaluate these ideas, we develop a novel measure of curveball questions using natural language processing techniques. Using a corpus of quarterly earnings calls and data on newspaper closures, which induce exogenous variation in a locally headquartered firm's information environment, we find support for our theory. 

Keywords: economic scoiology, expression games, natural language processing, discourse, executives

Suggested Citation

Bhatia, Nandil and Cai, Wei and Srivastava, Sameer B., Throwing Curveballs: Unpacking Surprising Questions in Evaluative Settings and Probing their Origins  (June 30, 2024). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4881896 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4881896

Nandil Bhatia (Contact Author)

Columbia University - Columbia Business School, Management ( email )

665 West 130th Street
New York, NY 10027
United States

Wei Cai

Columbia Business School ( email )

3022 Broadway
New York, NY 10027
United States

Sameer B. Srivastava

University of California, Berkeley ( email )

2220 Piedmont Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94720
United States
6178958707 (Phone)

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