Rembrand Koning

The Lives and Deaths of Jobs: Technical Interdependence and Survival in a Job Structure

Prior work has considered the properties of individual jobs that make them more or less likely to survive in organizations. Yet little research examines how a job’s position within a larger job structure affects its life chances and thus the evolution of the larger job structure over time. In this article, we explore the impact of technical interdependence on the dynamics of job structures. We argue that jobs that are more enmeshed in a job structure through these interdependencies are more likely to survive. We test our theory on a quarter century of personnel and job description data for the nonacademic staff of one of America’s largest public universities. Our results provide support for our key hypotheses: jobs that are more enmeshed in clusters of technical interdependence are less likely to die. At the same time, being part of such a cluster means that a job is more vulnerable if its neighbors disappear. And the “protection” of technical interdependence is contingent: it does not hold in the face of...

Firm Turnover and the Return of Racial Establishment Segregation

Racial segregation between U.S. workplaces is greater today than it was a generation ago. This increase happened alongside declines in within-establishment occupational segregation, on which most prior research has focused. We examine more than 40 years of longitudinal data on the racial employment composition of every large private-sector workplace in the United States to calculate between- and within-establishment trends in racial employment segregation over time. We demonstrate that the return of racial establishment segregation owes little to within-establishment processes, but rather stems from differences in the turnover rates of more and less homogeneous workplaces. Present research on employment segregation focuses mainly on within-firm processes. By doing so, scholars may be overstating the country’s progress on employment integration and ignoring other avenues of intervention that may give greater leverage for further integrating firms.

Strategy and Diversity: Unpacking the Gender and Racial Gaps in Earning

Organizational scholars have long focused on earning inequalities across genders and races, yet large earning differences prevail in almost all occupations worldwide. While most research focuses on...

Learning to Manage: A Field Experiment in the Indian Startup Ecosystem

Why do some entrepreneurs thrive while others fail? We explore whether the advice entrepreneurs receive about people management influences their firms performance. We conducted a randomized field experiment in India with 100 high-growth technology firms whose founders received in-person advice from other entrepreneurs who varied in their managerial style. We find that entrepreneurs who received advice from peers with an active approach to managing people–instituting regular meetings, setting goals consistently, and providing frequent feedback to employees–grew 28% larger and were 10 percentage points less likely to fail than those who got advice from peers with a passive people-management approach two years after our intervention. Entrepreneurs with MBAs or accelerator experience did not respond to this intervention, suggesting that formal training can limit the spread of peer advice.

Population Processes and Establishment-Level Racial Employment Segregation

Racial segregation between American workplaces is greater today than it was a generation ago. This increase has happened alongside the declines in within-establishment occupational segregation on which most prior research has focused. We examine more than 40 years of longitudinal data on the racial employment composition of every large private-sector workplace in the United States and calculate decomposable Theil statistics of segregation to compare and contrast between-area, between-establishment, and within-establishment trends in racial employment segregation over time. We demonstrate that the increase in establishment segregation owes little to within-establishment processes but rather stems from the different birth and death rates of more- and less-homogeneous workplaces. Present research on employment segregation focuses intently on within-firm processes. By doing so, we may be overstating what progress has been made on employment integration and ignoring other avenues of intervention that may give greater leverage for further integrating firms.

When Proximity May Not Be Destiny: The Role of Existing Relationships

Research on geography and knowledge spillovers is premised on the proposition that proximity reduces the cost of search and coordination. Thus, learning from proximate parties is easier than from more distant ones. As a consequence, nearby individuals, teams, and firms share overlapping knowledge and correlated outcomes. In this paper we theorize that spatial spillovers fundamentally depend on the presence of existing relationships. Using multi-dimensional network formation data from the random placement of teams at a startup bootcamp, we show that spatial spillovers decline if team members have existing ties within a particular social setting. For teams with preexisting ties within the bootcamp, localized spillovers appear small or non-existent. For teams without preexisting ties we find that outcomes improve if neighbors are high performing, but that outcomes worsen if neighboring teams are low performing. Our findings suggest that existing relationships do affect spillovers, primarily by capping downsides, but also by limiting the upsides of being near a high-performing team.

Field Experiments in Networks, Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from a Startup Bootcamp

Since its establishment in 2003, this program has helped to launch world-class scholars into the exciting and emerging field of entrepreneurship research, thus laying a foundation for future scientific advancement. The findings generated by this effort will be translated into knowledge with immediate application for policymakers, educators, service providers, and entrepreneurs as well as high-quality academic research.