The Liability of Leading: Battling Aspiration and Survival Goals in the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions

Elizabeth Boyle () and Zur Shapira ()
Additional contact information
Elizabeth Boyle: Stern School of Business, New York University, New York, New York 10011
Zur Shapira: Stern School of Business, New York University, New York, New York 10011

Organization Science, 2012, vol. 23, issue 4, 1100-1113

Abstract: We extend the variable risk preferences model of decision making to a competitive context in order to develop theory about how competition affects both focus of attention and risk taking. We hypothesize and find support for leader–follower differences in the channeling of attention to an aspiration or survival point. Our results indicate that leaders focus on their aspiration point, whereas followers' focus of attention shifts between their aspiration and survival points. By identifying and elaborating on the different cognitive loads and social expectations related to the positions of leader and follower, we show that leaders are prone to take excessive risks to maintain their leadership position. We refer to this phenomenon as the liability of leading. Our study context is a naturally occurring experiment in strategic decision making, the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions.

Keywords: aspirations; attention focus; behavioral theory of the firm; risk taking; survival; variable risk preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1110.0690 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:23:y:2012:i:4:p:1100-1113

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Organization Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().