Rivalry Increases Risk Taking, Physiological Arousal, and Promotion Focus
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Going for it on Fourth Down: Rivalry Increases Risk Taking, Physiological Arousal, and Promotion Focus Item Type Article Authors To, Christopher; Kilduff, Gavin J.; Ordoñez, Lisa; Schweitzer, Maurice E. Citation To, C., Kilduff, G. J., Ordoñez, L., & Schweitzer, M. E. (2018). Going for it on fourth down: Rivalry increases risk taking, physiological arousal, and promotion focus. Academy of Management Journal, 61(4), 1281-1306. DOI 10.5465/amj.2016.0850 Publisher ACAD MANAGEMENT Journal ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT JOURNAL Rights Copyright of the Academy of Management, all rights reserved. Download date 02/10/2021 23:53:31 Item License http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ Version Final published version Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/632578 r Academy of Management Journal 2018, Vol. 61, No. 4, 1281–1306. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2016.0850 GOING FOR IT ON FOURTH DOWN: RIVALRY INCREASES RISK TAKING, PHYSIOLOGICAL AROUSAL, AND PROMOTION FOCUS CHRISTOPHER TO GAVIN J. KILDUFF New York University LISA ORDOÑEZ University of Arizona MAURICE E. SCHWEITZER University of Pennsylvania Risk taking is fundamental to organizational decision making. Extending prior work that has identified individual and situational antecedents of risk taking, we explore a significant relational antecedent: rivalry. In both a field setting and a laboratory ex- periment, we explore how a competitor’s identity and relationship with the decision maker influences risk taking. We analyze play-by-play archival data from the National Football League and find that interactions with rival (versus nonrival) partners in- creases risky behavior. In a laboratory experiment involving face-to-face competition, we demonstrate that rivalry increases risk taking via two pathways: increased pro- motion focus and physiological arousal. These findings highlight the importance of incorporating relational characteristics to understand risk taking. Our findings also advance our understanding of when and why competition promotes risk taking, and underscore the importance of identity and relationships in the psychology and physi- ology of competitive decision making in organizations. Attitudes toward risk constitute a fundamental Scholars in management, psychology, and eco- building block for how individuals, groups, and or- nomics have explored individual and situational ganizations make decisions (March & Shapira, 1987). characteristics that influence risk taking. For ex- Such attitudes underlie a wide range of decisions, ample, scholars have found that individual charac- from hiring and investment decisions (Malhotra, teristics, such as gender and experience, moderate risk 2010; Olian & Rynes, 1984; Scholer, Zou, Fujita, taking (Byrnes, Miller, & Schafer, 1999; Menkoff, Stroessner, & Higgins, 2010; Staw, 1976; Zou, Scholer, Schmidt, & Brozynski, 2006), as do situational char- & Higgins, 2014), to creative decisions (e.g., Amabile, acteristics such as incentives (Hvide, 2002; Sanders & 1988), to interpersonal decisions, such as the decision Hambrick, 2007; Wiseman & Gomez-Mejia, 1998) and to speak-up (e.g., Burris, 2012). As such, it is unsur- the number of potential competitors (e.g., Boyd & De prising that risk is a fundamental topic for manage- Nicolo, 2005). Further, risk taking can vary according ment scholars. to whether a decision maker recently experienced a loss (Lehman & Hahn, 2013; Zou et al., 2014), and whether the decision domain involves health versus We thank Brett Allison, Lesha Bhansali, Alisha Charya, financial concerns (Blais & Weber, 2006; Figner & Riddhi Deliwala, Max Donahue, Jonathan Ferng, James Murphy, 2011). Rein, and Kristina Wald for their excellent research assis- Building upon recent trends in relational ap- tance, as well as Eryan Gisches and the Crooms family for proaches to management research (e.g., Gelfand, their research support. We would also like to thank the ’ Wharton Behavioral Laboratory, the Eller School Organi- Major, Raver, Nishii, & O Brien, 2006; Grant, 2007; zational Behavioral Laboratory, and the Stern Behavioral Wrzesniewski, Dutton, & Debebe, 2003), we ap- Lab for their financial support. Lastly, we gratefully thank ply a relational lens to the study of risk taking. three anonymous reviewers for their careful reading and In particular, we investigate how rivalry (Kilduff, insightful comments on an earlier draft. Elfenbein, & Staw, 2010), a unique social relationship 1281 Copyright of the Academy of Management, all rights reserved. Contents may not be copied, emailed, posted to a listserv, or otherwise transmitted without the copyright holder’s express written permission. Users may print, download, or email articles for individual use only. 1282 Academy of Management Journal August that is common both within and between organi- research to investigate the physiological roots of or- zations, influences risk attitudes. Although prior ganizational behavior (Akinola, 2010). research has linked rivalry to greater motivation (Kilduff, 2014) and unethical behavior absent ATTITUDES TOWARD RISK of risk (Kilduff, Galinsky, Gallo, & Reade, 2016), it is unclear how rivalry affects risk attitudes. Com- Attitudes toward risk are an inherent feature of petition against a rival may trigger greater threat organizationally relevant decision making at the in- to one’s sense of self-worth (Kilduff, Galinsky, dividual and organizational levels. For example, for Gallo, & Reade, 2016), cause actors to pursue individuals within organizations, the risk of social more conservative and familiar strategies (Staw, backlash can prevent them from voicing conse- Sandelands, & Dutton, 1981), and ultimately reduce quential and potentially voicing consequential con- risk taking consistent with the “threat rigid- cerns (e.g., Burris, 2012), and from helping fellow ity hypothesis.” Across an archival study and a lab- team members (e.g., Podsakoff, Ahearne, & oratory experiment, however, we find the opposite: MacKenzie, 1997), thus harming team performance. rivalry increases risk taking through two pathways— At the organizational level, managers’ risk attitudes psychological (via increased promotion focus) and underlie decisions to launch new technological and physiological (via increased arousal). product-related innovations in manufacturing (Greve, In this investigation, we make two key theoreti- 2003), and can lead to a higher frequency of acqui- cal contributions. First, we apply a relational lens sitions (Thornton, 2001). Indeed, in an analysis of to risk taking and integrate regulatory focus theory S&P (Standard & Poor’s) 500 companies, CEOs’ risk (Crowe & Higgins, 1997; Higgins, 1997, 1998) to behaviors have been directly linked to their firms’ develop a theoretical framework of risk taking. Our performance (Hayward & Hambrick, 1997; Sanders & findings reveal that individuals become more risk Hambrick, 2007). A thorough understanding of risk- seeking when competing against a rival than when taking behavior is therefore of pressing concern for competing against a nonrival. These findings ex- managers and organizational scholars alike. The ex- pand our understanding of the antecedents of risk tent to which a decision is risky is defined as the extent taking, and build upon research that has begun to to which it has uncertain outcomes; holding expected highlight the importance of relational factors to value constant, a decision with higher variance in constructs such as justice attitudes (Colquitt et al., possible outcomes is riskier than a decision with 2013) and motivation (Grant, 2007). Our model and lower variance in outcomes (March & Shapira, 1987; findings also advances understanding of regulatory Weber, Shafir, & Blais, 2004). focus theory. In contrast to prior work that has ex- Extant research has identified a number of factors amined the role of regulatory focus in decisions that influence risk preferences (e.g., Loewenstein, made by individuals acting in isolation, and has Weber, Hsee, & Welch, 2001; Lopes, 1994). Tradi- emphasized dispositional and situational drivers, tionally, risk attitudes were conceptualized as a sta- we identify the importance of relationships in inter- ble dispositional attribute, such that some people are dependent decision-making contexts for regulatory risk takers and others more cautious. Supporting this focus. view, a variety of personality factors have been Second, we contribute to the literature on rivalry. linked to risk taking, including achievement moti- We do so by identifying risk taking as an important vation (Atkinson, 1964; Kogan & Wallach, 1964; consequence of rivalry, extending prior work linking McClelland, 1965), extraversion (Eysenck, 1976), rivalry to motivation (Kilduff, 2014), reduced de- impulsiveness (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1978), and sen- liberation in pursuit of goals (Converse & Reinhard, sation seeking (Zuckerman, 1979). For example, us- 2016), and unethical behavior (Kilduff et al., 2016). ing a shuffleboard game, Atkinson, Bastian, Earl, and Furthermore, we highlight the role of increased Litwin (1960) found that individuals’ achievement promotion focus as a core psychological conse- motivation predicted their preference for riskier quence of rivalry, which may provide a parsimoni- shots (i.e., more difficult shots with higher potential ous framework that encompasses previously gains) over less risky shots (i.e., less difficult shots established mechanisms and outcomes of rivalry. with lower potential gains). Other research has found We also highlight physiological arousal as a conse- a