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We conduct a large-scale natural field experiment with a Fortune 500 company to test several approaches to attract minorities to high-profile positions. 5,000 prospective applicants were randomized into treatments varying a portion of recruiting materials. We find that self-selection at two early-career stages exhibits a substantial race gap. Importantly, we show that this gap can be strongly influenced by several treatments, with some increasing application rates by minorities by 40 percent and others being particularly effective for minority women. The heterogeneities we find by gender, race, and career stage shed light on the underlying drivers of self-selection barriers among minorities.

We conduct a laboratory experiment to study how advice affects the gender gap in the entry into a real-effort tournament. Our experiment is motivated by the concerns raised by approaching the gender gap through affirmative action. Advice is given by subjects who have already had some experience with the participation decision. We show that advice improves the entry decision of subjects, in that forgone earnings due to wrong entry decisions go significantly down. This is mainly driven by significantly increased entry of strong performing women, who also become significantly more confident, and reduced entry of weak performing men.

In this chapter we present a first survey of laboratory studies using communication. We first discuss a number of issues about the implementation of communication in the laboratory. In particular we discuss variations in the channels, the structure and the content analysis of communication. Second, we survey a number of studies in which the effects of free-form communication are compared to those with more restricted communication. We finish with a brief reference to the question why communication matters, to what the mechanisms through which communication affects behavior are.

The persistent lack of workplace diversity in management and leadership may lead to organizational vulnerabilities. White males occupy most high-profile positions in the largest U.S. corporations whereas African Americans, Hispanics, and women are clearly underrepresented in leadership roles. While many firms and other organizations have set ambitious goals to increase demographic diversity, there is a dearth of empirical evidence on effective ways to reach them. We use a natural field experiment to test several hypotheses on effective means to attract minority candidates for top professional careers. By randomly varying the content in recruiting materials of a major financial services corporation with over 10,000 employees, we test different types of signals regarding the extent and manner in which the employer values diversity among its workers. We find that signaling explicit interest in employee diversity can reverse the ethnicity gap in rates of interest and applications, and that it has a strong positive effect on interest in openings among racial minority candidates, the likelihood that they apply, and the probability that they are selected. These results uncover an effective method for disrupting monocultures in management through a minor intervention that influences sorting among job-seekers into high-profile careers.

La tesis doctoral se compone de tres ensayos, en cada uno de los cuales se analizan con experimentos de laboratorio cómo las personas usan y reaccionan a las diferentes formas de comunicación y consejo. Los individuos toman sus decisiones de forma anónima y la comunicación y el consejo, sea de forma libre o pre-formulado, se transmite a través de la computadora. En el primer ensayo, estudiamos como el consejo de una persona con más experiencia y mejor informada afecta a la entrada de una persona en un torneo de esfuerzo real y a la brecha de género. En general, el consejo mejora la toma de entrada de los sujetos y las mejoras son impulsadas principalmente por el aumento de la entrada de las mujeres con un rendimiento fuerte, que también se convierten más seguras de ellas mismas, y la reducción de la entrada de los hombres con un rendimiento bajo. Nos encontramos con que la brecha global de género persiste a pesar de que desaparece entre los de bajo rendimiento y los de fuerte rendimiento. La persistencia se debe a una brecha de género emergente entre los sujetos con un rendimiento intermedio. En el segundo ensayo, investigamos cómo, después de una historia de la decadencia en la cooperación, las organizaciones pueden reactivar la cooperación de una manera perdurable en un juego repetido de contribución voluntaria. Simplemente iniciar el juego repetido de nuevo - un reinicio puro - conduce a un aumento inicial de la cooperación, pero seguido de una nueva decadencia al nivel anterior. Motivados por la insuficiencia de cooperación en las organizaciones estudiamos el potencial de tres intervenciones de activación de la cooperación superior y sostenida. Nos encontramos con que una explicación detallada de las causas de la decadencia en la cooperación combinada con un consejo sobre cómo prevenir el decaimiento no tiene un efecto más allá de simplemente empezar de nuevo. Por el contrario, un mensaje de comunicación de forma libre unidireccional enviado por el líder a los seguidores revive la cooperación plenamente, independiente de ser precedida por una explicación y un consejo. En el tercer ensayo, estudiamos cómo la separación entre hacer y comunicar una decisión afecta a la equidad y las reacciones a decisiones ingratas. Un decisor asigna una cantidad justa o injusta de dinero para sí mismo, dos receptores y un tercero. El tomador de decisiones o el tercero comunica el reparto elegido a los receptores, quienes deciden si castigar o no. Con el castigo alineado, los receptores tienen que castigar el tomador de decisiones y el tercero con la misma cantidad de castigo, mientras que con el castigo independientes son libres de decidir a quién castigar. Los tomadores de decisiones optan más a menudo el reparto injusto cuando el castigo es alineado frente a independiente, pero en ambos casos, los tomadores de decisiones que se deciden por el reparto injusto son más propensos a delegar la comunicación a los terceros. Con el castigo independiente, receptores castigan el decisor y el tercero más cuando el tercero comunica la decisión por el reparto injusto. El tercero expresa más a menudo remordimiento que necesidad a diferencia de los tomadores de decisiones, que con el castigo independiente los receptores aparentemente perciben como un intento de culpar al otro., The doctoral thesis is composed by three essays, in each of which we analyze with laboratory experiments how individuals use and react to different communication and advice forms. Individuals make their decisions anonymously and communication and advice, either free form or pre-formulated, is transmitted through the computer. In the first essay, we study how advice by a more experienced and better-informed person affects an individual’s entry into a real-effort tournament and the gender gap. Overall, advice improves the entry decision of subjects and the improvements are mainly driven by increased entry of strong-performing women, who also become more confident, and reduced entry of weak-performing men. We find that the overall gender gap persists even though it disappears among low and strong performers. The persistence is due to an emerging gender gap among intermediate performers. In the second essay, we investigate how after a history of decay in cooperation, organizations can revive cooperation in a repeated voluntary contribution game in an enduring way. Simply starting the repeated game over - a pure restart - leads to an initial increase of cooperation, but to a subsequent new decay to the previous level. Motivated by cooperation failure in organizations we study the potential of three interventions of triggering higher and sustained cooperation. We find that a detailed explanation of the causes of the decay in cooperation combined with an advice on how to prevent the decay does not have an effect beyond that of just starting over. In contrast, a one-way free form communication message sent by the leader to the followers strongly revives cooperation, independent of being preceded by explanation and advice. In the third essay, we study how the separation between making and communicating a choice affects fairness and reactions to harsh decisions. A decision-maker allocates a fair or unfair amount of money to herself, two receivers, and a third party. The decision-maker or the third party communicates the allocation chosen to the receivers, who then decide whether to punish or not. With aligned punishment, receivers have to target both decision-maker and third party with the same amount of punishment, whereas with independent punishment they are free to decide whom to punish. Decision-makers choose more often the unfair allocation when punishment is aligned as opposed to independent, but in both cases, decision-makers who choose the unfair allocation are more likely to delegate the communication to the third party. With independent punishment, receivers punish the decision-maker and the third party more when the later communicates the unfair allocation decision. The third party expresses more often remorse than need as opposed to decision-makers, which with independent punishment receivers seem to perceive as an attempt of shifting blame.

We conduct a laboratory experiment to study how advice affects the gender gap in the entry into a real-effort tournament. Our experiment is motivated by the concerns raised by approaching the gender gap through affirmative action. Advice is given by subjects who have already had some experience with the participation decision. We show that advice improves the entry decision of subjects, in that forgone earnings due to wrong entry decisions go significantly down. This is mainly driven by significantly increased entry of strong performing women, who also become significantly more confident, and reduced entry of weak performing men.

Comunicación presentada en European Economic Association & Econometric Society. 2012 Parallel Meetings, celebrada del 27 al 31 de agosto de 2012 en Málaga (España), We conduct a laboratory experiment, in which subjects decide whether to enter a tournament, in which they have to perform a real effort task. In one treatment subjects receive advice on whether to participate in the tournament. Advice is given by subjects who have already had some experience with the same decision and have some informational advantage. We show that advice significantly improves the entry decision of subjects. The total costs of wrong entry decisions go significantly down and the payoffs of those who receive advice go up. This is mainly driven by the fact that high ability women enter the tournament significantly more often while low ability men enter significantly less often. Though the gender gap in tournament entry is reduced, it still persists. Overall, advice given tends to be ‘good’ advice. Finally, we find that women are slightly more hesitant than men to advice entry into tournament.