IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/mgtdec/v41y2020i6p986-997.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On discouraging environments in team contests: Evidence from top‐level beach volleyball

Author

Listed:
  • Hendrik Sonnabend

Abstract

This contribution empirically investigates the adverse effects of unbalanced competition and negative feedback in team contests in the field. Using a unique data set sourced from top‐level beach volleyball, I provide evidence for discouragement effects in line with contest theory. The analysis identifies a non‐linear relationship between ex ante contestant heterogeneity and performance. Overall, no gender differences can be found. Finally, it shows that age diversity in teams helps to overcome setbacks.

Suggested Citation

  • Hendrik Sonnabend, 2020. "On discouraging environments in team contests: Evidence from top‐level beach volleyball," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(6), pages 986-997, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:mgtdec:v:41:y:2020:i:6:p:986-997
    DOI: 10.1002/mde.3153
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/mde.3153
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/mde.3153?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Azmat, Ghazala & Iriberri, Nagore, 2010. "The importance of relative performance feedback information: Evidence from a natural experiment using high school students," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(7-8), pages 435-452, August.
    2. Jennifer Brown, 2011. "Quitters Never Win: The (Adverse) Incentive Effects of Competing with Superstars," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(5), pages 982-1013.
    3. Alex Krumer & Mosi Rosenboim & Offer Moshe Shapir, 2016. "Gender, Competitiveness, and Physical Characteristics," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 17(3), pages 234-259, April.
    4. Konrad, Kai A., 2009. "Strategy and Dynamics in Contests," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199549603.
    5. Björn Bartling & Leif Brandes & Daniel Schunk, 2015. "Expectations as Reference Points: Field Evidence from Professional Soccer," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(11), pages 2646-2661, November.
    6. Uwe Sunde, 2009. "Heterogeneity and performance in tournaments: a test for incentive effects using professional tennis data," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(25), pages 3199-3208.
    7. Klumpp, Tilman & Polborn, Mattias K., 2006. "Primaries and the New Hampshire Effect," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(6-7), pages 1073-1114, August.
    8. Johannes Berger & Petra Nieken, 2016. "Heterogeneous Contestants and the Intensity of Tournaments," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 17(7), pages 631-660, October.
    9. Jetter, Michael & Walker, Jay K., 2015. "Game, set, and match: Do women and men perform differently in competitive situations?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 96-108.
    10. Thierry Lallemand & Robert Plasman & François Rycx, 2008. "Women and Competition in Elimination Tournaments," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 9(1), pages 3-19, February.
    11. Romain Gauriot & Lionel Page, 2019. "Does Success Breed Success? a Quasi-Experiment on Strategic Momentum in Dynamic Contests," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(624), pages 3107-3136.
    12. Tran, Anh & Zeckhauser, Richard, 2012. "Rank as an inherent incentive: Evidence from a field experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(9-10), pages 645-650.
    13. Todd A. McFall & Charles R. Knoeber & Walter N. Thurman, 2009. "Contests, Grand Prizes, and the Hot Hand," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 10(3), pages 236-255, June.
    14. Cohen-Zada, Danny & Krumer, Alex & Rosenboim, Mosi & Shapir, Offer Moshe, 2017. "Choking under pressure and gender: Evidence from professional tennis," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 176-190.
    15. Thierry Lallemand & Robert Plasman & François Rycx, 2005. "Women and competition in elimination tournaments: evidence from professional tennis data," DULBEA Working Papers 05-19.RS, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    16. Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2007. "Do Women Shy Away From Competition? Do Men Compete Too Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1067-1101.
    17. March, Christoph & Sahm, Marco, 2017. "Asymmetric discouragement in asymmetric contests," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 23-27.
    18. Roman M. Sheremeta, 2018. "Behavior In Group Contests: A Review Of Experimental Research," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 683-704, July.
    19. Genakos, Christos & Pagliero, Mario & Garbi, Eleni, 2015. "When pressure sinks performance: Evidence from diving competitions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 5-8.
    20. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2001. "Boys will be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 261-292.
    21. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2015. "A survey of experimental research on contests, all-pay auctions and tournaments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 609-669, December.
    22. Olof Rosenqvist, 2019. "Are the Most Competitive Men More Resilient to Failures than the Most Competitive Women? Evidence from Professional Golf Tournaments," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 100(3), pages 578-591, May.
    23. Sandra Schneemann & Christian Deutscher, 2017. "Intermediate Information, Loss Aversion, And Effort: Empirical Evidence," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(4), pages 1759-1770, October.
    24. Paserman, M. Daniele, 2023. "Gender Differences in Performance in Competitive Environments? Evidence from Professional Tennis Players," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 590-609.
    25. Christian Deutscher & Bernd Frick & Oliver Gürtler & Joachim Prinz, 2013. "Sabotage in Tournaments with Heterogeneous Contestants: Empirical Evidence from the Soccer Pitch," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 115(4), pages 1138-1157, October.
    26. Stefan Szymanski, 2010. "The Economic Design of Sporting Contests," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: The Comparative Economics of Sport, chapter 1, pages 1-78, Palgrave Macmillan.
    27. Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2011. "Gender and Competition," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 601-630, September.
    28. Pekka Ilmakunnas & Seija Ilmakunnas, 2011. "Diversity at the Workplace: Whom Does it Benefit?," De Economist, Springer, vol. 159(2), pages 223-255, June.
    29. Sheremeta, Roman, 2018. "Experimental Research on Contests," MPRA Paper 89327, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    30. Romain Gauriot & Lionel Page, 2019. "Does Success Breed Success? a Quasi-Experiment on Strategic Momentum in Dynamic Contests," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(624), pages 3107-3136.
    31. Forrest, David & Goddard, John & Simmons, Robert, 2005. "Odds-setters as forecasters: The case of English football," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 551-564.
    32. Delfgaauw, Josse & Dur, Robert & Non, Arjan & Verbeke, Willem, 2014. "Dynamic incentive effects of relative performance pay: A field experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 1-13.
    33. Pablo Casas-Arce & F. Asís Martínez-Jerez, 2009. "Relative Performance Compensation, Contests, and Dynamic Incentives," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(8), pages 1306-1320, August.
    34. Stein, William E, 2002. "Asymmetric Rent-Seeking with More Than Two Contestants," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 113(3-4), pages 325-336, December.
    35. Wozniak, David, 2012. "Gender differences in a market with relative performance feedback: Professional tennis players," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 158-171.
    36. Lauren Banko & Eva Marikova Leeds & Michael A. Leeds, 2016. "Gender Differences in Response to Setbacks: Evidence from Professional Tennis," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 97(2), pages 161-176, June.
    37. Klaassen, Franc & Magnus, Jan R., 2014. "Analyzing Wimbledon: The Power of Statistics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199355969.
    38. Jonah Berger & Devin Pope, 2011. "Can Losing Lead to Winning?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(5), pages 817-827, May.
    39. Frick, Bernd, 2011. "Gender differences in competitiveness: Empirical evidence from professional distance running," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 389-398, June.
    40. David A. Malueg & Andrew J. Yates, 2010. "Testing Contest Theory: Evidence from Best-of-Three Tennis Matches," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(3), pages 689-692, August.
    41. Ronald G. Ehrenberg & Michael L. Bognanno, 1990. "The Incentive Effects of Tournaments Revisited: Evidence from the European PGA Tour," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 43(3), pages 74, April.
    42. Iqbal, Hamzah & Krumer, Alex, 2019. "Discouragement effect and intermediate prizes in multi-stage contests: Evidence from Davis Cup," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 364-381.
    43. Mattie Toma, 2017. "Missed Shots at the Free-Throw Line," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 18(6), pages 539-559, August.
    44. Steven D. Levitt, 2004. "Why are gambling markets organised so differently from financial markets?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(495), pages 223-246, April.
    45. Cohen-Zada, Danny & Krumer, Alex & Shtudiner, Ze'ev, 2017. "Psychological momentum and gender," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 66-81.
    46. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    47. Norbert Bach & Oliver Guertler & Joachim Prinz, 2009. "Incentive Effects in Tournaments with Heterogeneous Competitors – an Analysis of the Olympic Rowing Regatta in Sydney 2000," management revue. Socio-economic Studies, Rainer Hampp Verlag, vol. 20(3), pages 239-253.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Leonardo Egidi & Ioannis Ntzoufras, 2020. "A Bayesian quest for finding a unified model for predicting volleyball games," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1307-1336, November.
    2. Craig A. Depken II & John M. Gandar & Dmitry A. Shapiro, 2022. "Set-level Strategic and Psychological Momentum in Best-of-three-set Professional Tennis Matches," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 23(5), pages 598-623, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lackner, Mario & Weichselbaumer, Michael, 2023. "Can barely winning lead to losing? Gender and past performance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 258-274.
    2. Bar-Eli, Michael & Krumer, Alex & Morgulev, Elia, 2020. "Ask not what economics can do for sports - Ask what sports can do for economics," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    3. Mario Lackner & Michael Weichselbaumer, 2021. "Can barely winning lead to losing? Evidence for a substantial gender gap in psychological momentum," Economics working papers 2021-19, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    4. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Patricia Esteve‐González & Anwesha Mukherjee, 2023. "Heterogeneity, leveling the playing field, and affirmative action in contests," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(3), pages 924-974, January.
    5. Christian Deutscher & Marco Sahm & Sandra Schneemann & Hendrik Sonnabend, 2022. "Strategic investment decisions in multi-stage contests with heterogeneous players," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 93(2), pages 281-317, September.
    6. Johannes Berger & Petra Nieken, 2016. "Heterogeneous Contestants and the Intensity of Tournaments," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 17(7), pages 631-660, October.
    7. Deutscher, Christian & Neuberg, Lena & Thiem, Stefan, 2023. "Who’s afraid of the GOATs? - Shadow effects of tennis superstars," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    8. Graff, Frederik & Grund, Christian & Harbring, Christine, 2021. "Competing on the Holodeck - The effect of virtual peers and heterogeneity in dynamic tournaments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    9. Roman M. Sheremeta, 2016. "The pros and cons of workplace tournaments," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 302-302, October.
    10. Christian Deutscher & Marco Sahm & Sandra Schneemann & Hendrik Sonnabend, 2019. "Strategic Investment Decisions in Multi-stage Contests with Heterogeneous Players," CESifo Working Paper Series 7474, CESifo.
    11. Iqbal, Hamzah & Krumer, Alex, 2017. "Discouragement Effect and Intermediate Prizes in Multi-Stage Contests: Evidence from Tennis’s Davis Cup," Economics Working Paper Series 1719, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    12. Sandra Schneemann & Christian Deutscher, 2017. "Intermediate Information, Loss Aversion, And Effort: Empirical Evidence," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(4), pages 1759-1770, October.
    13. Bernd Frick & Friedrich Scheel, 2013. "Gender differences in competitiveness: empirical evidence from 100m races," Chapters, in: Eva Marikova Leeds & Michael A. Leeds (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Women in Sports, chapter 14, pages 293-318, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2015. "A survey of experimental research on contests, all-pay auctions and tournaments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 609-669, December.
    15. Keith F. Gilsdorf & Vasant A. Sukhatme, 2013. "Gender differences in responses to incentives in sports: some new results from golf," Chapters, in: Eva Marikova Leeds & Michael A. Leeds (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Women in Sports, chapter 5, pages 92-114, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Cohen-Zada, Danny & Krumer, Alex & Rosenboim, Mosi & Shapir, Offer Moshe, 2017. "Choking under pressure and gender: Evidence from professional tennis," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 176-190.
    17. Iqbal, Hamzah & Krumer, Alex, 2019. "Discouragement effect and intermediate prizes in multi-stage contests: Evidence from Davis Cup," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 364-381.
    18. Nicolas Houy & Jean-Philippe Nicolaï & Marie Claire Villeval, 2020. "Always doing your best? Effort and performance in dynamic settings," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 89(3), pages 249-286, October.
    19. Kimbrough, Erik O. & Laughren, Kevin & Sheremeta, Roman, 2020. "War and conflict in economics: Theories, applications, and recent trends," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 998-1013.
    20. Dong, Lu & Huang, Lingbo, 2019. "Is there no ‘I’ in team? Strategic effects in multi-battle team competition," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 75(PB).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:mgtdec:v:41:y:2020:i:6:p:986-997. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/7976 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.