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It Pays to Be Herr Kaiser Germans With Noble-Sounding Surnames More Often Work as Managers Than as Employees

Author

Listed:
  • Raphael Silberzahn

    (Judge Business School - CAM - University of Cambridge [UK])

  • Eric Luis Uhlmann

    (GREGH - Groupement de Recherche et d'Etudes en Gestion à HEC - HEC Paris - Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

In the field study reported here (N = 222,924), we found that Germans with noble-sounding surnames, such as Kaiser ("emperor"), König ("king"), and Fürst ("prince"), more frequently hold managerial positions than Germans with last names that either refer to common everyday occupations, such as Koch ("cook"), Bauer ("farmer"), and Becker/Bäcker ("baker"), or do not refer to any social role. This phenomenon occurs despite the fact that noble-sounding surnames never indicated that the person actually held a noble title. Because of basic properties of associative cognition, the status linked to a name may spill over to its bearer and influence his or her occupational outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Raphael Silberzahn & Eric Luis Uhlmann, 2013. "It Pays to Be Herr Kaiser Germans With Noble-Sounding Surnames More Often Work as Managers Than as Employees," Post-Print hal-00980265, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00980265
    DOI: 10.1177/0956797613494851
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    Cited by:

    1. Filip Gesiarz & Jan-Emmanuel De Neve & Tali Sharot, 2020. "The motivational cost of inequality: Opportunity gaps reduce the willingness to work," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(9), pages 1-18, September.
    2. Frank D. Hodge & Kim I. Mendoza & Roshan K. Sinha, 2021. "The Effect of Humanizing Robo‐Advisors on Investor Judgments," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(1), pages 770-792, March.
    3. Gary A. Hoover & Christian Hopp, 2017. "What Crisis? Taking Stock of Management Researchers' Experiences with and Views of Scholarly Misconduct," CESifo Working Paper Series 6611, CESifo.
    4. Massimo Baldini & Andrea Barigazzi, 2024. "Surnames in Local Newspapers and Social Mobility," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 174(3), pages 859-879, September.

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