Research

We examine how political heterogeneity in groups affects individual performance in settings where people work alongside others. Leveraging the random assignment of golfers to groups in Professional Golfers’ Association Tour tournaments, we find that golfers score 0.2 strokes better per round when playing in politically homogeneous versus heterogeneous groups. This corresponds to a five-rank improvement before the tournament cut and an additional $13,000–$23,400 in tournament earnings. The effect intensifies during periods of high societal political polarization and diminishes when polarization is low. We propose that politically heterogeneous groups create a more stressful and less psychologically safe environment, reducing focus and leading to reduced performance. Consistent with this mechanism, analyses of shot-level data reveal that this effect is strongest during driving and putting shots when players are in close physical proximity. Our study contributes to the understanding of how political heterogeneity in groups affects individual performance in competitive settings, with implications for managing ideological differences in organizations.

Research Summary

We examine political affiliation's role in venture team formation and success. Using data from Crunchbase and L2 on 1125 US-based startups, we investigate political homophily in team assembly and its association with startup outcomes. Our analysis reveals strong political homogeneity in founding teams: teams with similar political views form more frequently than diverse teams, even after controlling for founders' gender, age, location, and industry. This political homophily relates to venture performance. Startups with politically heterogeneous founding teams are more likely to shut down. Across additional performance measures (capital funding, employee size, Crunchbase rankings), we observe directionally consistent associations with worse outcomes, though these secondary findings vary in robustness. These findings highlight the dual role of founders' political affiliations: their relationship with team composition and startup performance.

Managerial Summary

Our study examines political diversity's association with startup team formation and venture success. Analyzing data from 1125 US-based startups, we discovered a strong tendency for teams to form based on political similarity. Individuals with similar political views prefer starting companies together, even when accounting for age, gender, location, and industry. Startups with politically diverse founding teams are more likely to shut down. These teams also tend to receive less funding, have fewer employees, and exhibit worse Crunchbase rankings, although these patterns are less consistent than the survival effect. For entrepreneurs and investors, these findings highlight the need to balance team cohesion against diverse perspectives. Business practitioners should be aware of these dynamics when forming teams or developing management strategies, particularly in a politically charged environment.

This study analyzes the gender gap in self- and peer evaluations based on a laboratory experiment. Five players performed a creative task in a high-stakes winner-takes-all tournament. The treatment without validation informed all players that evaluations that they will conduct determine who will win. The treatment with public validation additionally informed them that they can see an objective performance measure of all players (including themselves) at the end of the experiment which is irrelevant for winning. The results show that men give themselves better self-evaluations compared to women when there is no validation. This gender difference vanishes completely when providing public validation.

This study analyzes how individuals evaluate their peers' performance in a high-stakes tournament in response to being randomly assigned to an age homogenous or heterogenous group using data from two TV shows. The data also allow us to explore expert evaluations because it contains objective ratings from an independent expert. Additionally, this study investigates how age-diverse groups affect individual performance in professional golf tournaments. The results show that peer and expert evaluations as well as individual performance are lower in age-diverse groups. Further evidence suggests that these effects occur when group members are unfamiliar but fade away once group members have gotten to know each other.