Knowledge that Transforms

Change agents at various organizational levels engage in bottom-up change , which refers to upward, self-initiated, and communicative behaviors intended to improve their unit or the organization. Although these behaviors share core characteristics, research has been fragmented across the micro (e.g., voice and creativity), meso (e.g., issue-selling and whistleblowing), and macro (e.g., institutional entrepreneurship) communities. This fragmentation has led to inconsistent conceptualizations and theoretical confusion regarding what truly matters to bottom-up change success. To address these issues, we synthesize the disparate research traditions to identify key predictors of bottom-up change success, specifically distinguishing two types of success: endorsement (positive attitudes toward bottom-up change) and implementation (the realization of bottom-up change). We then theorize the relative importance of change agents’ human capital and social capital in predicting success in bottom-up change. Meta-analytic evidence from 105 studies (N = 33,186) reveals that although both human capital and social capital predict endorsement, social capital emerges as the dominant driver of implementation. Additionally, traditional indicators of human capital and social capital (i.e., rank, education, and work experience) are less predictive of endorsement and implementation than human or social capital themselves. By integrating previously fragmented literatures, we develop a comprehensive framework to guide future organizational research on bottom-up change success.

A preregistered meta-analysis, including 244 effect sizes from 85 field audits and 361,645 individual job applications, tested for gender bias in hiring practices in female-stereotypical and gender-balanced as well as male-stereotypical jobs from 1976 to 2020. A “red team” of independent experts was recruited to increase the rigor and robustness of our meta-analytic approach. A forecasting survey further examined whether laypeople (n = 499 nationally representative adults) and scientists (n = 312) could predict the results. Forecasters correctly anticipated reductions in discrimination against female candidates over time. However, both scientists and laypeople overestimated the continuation of bias against female candidates. Instead, selection bias in favor of male over female candidates was eliminated and, if anything, slightly reversed in sign starting in 2009 for mixed-gender and male-stereotypical jobs in our sample. Forecasters further failed to anticipate that discrimination against male candidates for stereotypically female jobs would remain stable across the decades.

The objective of this paper is to resolve mixed findings about which type of evidence is more persuasive—statistical or anecdotal information. In a meta-analysis of 61 papers exploring the persuasive impact of evidence type, we establish that, in situations where emotional engagement is high (e.g., an issue associated with a severe threat, involving a health issue, or affecting oneself), statistical evidence is less influential than anecdotal evidence. However, in situations where emotional engagement is relatively low (e.g., an issue associated with low threat severity, involving a non-health issue, or affecting others), statistical evidence is more persuasive than anecdotal evidence. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings, and how to improve persuasive messaging by considering the contextual effectiveness of both anecdotes and statistics.

Are people more generous when less money is at stake? The Ultimatum Game (UG) and Dictator Game (DG) are often used as models of bargaining and charitable giving, respectively. Previous studies have produced conflicting results on whether UG and DG offers are lower when the stakes are high, and many previous studies had insufficient statistical power to detect significant effects of stake size. To resolve this, we conducted a meta-analysis of 31 existing studies that manipulated the size of participants’ endowments in the UG and DG (3233 total participants). We hypothesized that: (1) proposer offers would be lower with larger stakes in both games, owing to an increased cost of giving; and (2) offers would decrease more with stake size in the DG than the UG because proposers would not want to risk their offer being rejected in the UG. Our results found almost zero effect of stake size on UG offers (d = 0.02), and a small but significant effect of stake size on DG offers (d = 0.15). Furthermore, larger differences in stakes had little impact on the effect sizes in the UG, but had a medium-large impact on the effect sizes in the DG. These results show that higher stakes reduce donations in the DG, albeit not by much, and have little to no effect in the UG.