TY - GEN A1 - Thommes, Kirsten A1 - Akkerman, Agnes A1 - Born, Marieke T1 - Peer influence on protest participation: Communication and trust between co-workers as inhibitors or facilitators of mobilization T2 - Social Science Research N2 - In this article, we investigate how communication and trust networks between employees affect participation in a strike. We analyze whether the strength of network relations is related to congruence in strike behavior using social network data on 59 Dutch workers. We find that private communication networks and trust networks lead to similar strike behavior. This finding indicates that networks not only promote protest mobilization but are also vehicles for demobilization, albeit through different network relations. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2015.11.003 SN - 1096-0317 VL - 56 SP - 58 EP - 72 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Oertel, Simon A1 - Thommes, Kirsten A1 - Walgenbach, Peter T1 - Organizational Failure in the Aftermath of Radical Institutional Change T2 - Organization Studies N2 - This paper focuses on the question of the extent to which the institutional founding environment affects organizational success after a radical institutional change. We analyse firms founded in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) that experienced the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1990 and focus on how the institutional environment of their founding period influences their failure rates. Results show that organizational failure rates vary after institutional change due to differences in institutional founding conditions. This variation is influenced by the degree of (dis)similarity between the imprinted past and the present institutional context. Discussing the time-varying effect of institutional founding conditions, we contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of imprinting and organizational failure in situations of institutional change. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840615622071 SN - 1741-3044 VL - 37 IS - 8 SP - 1067 EP - 1087 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Thommes, Kirsten T1 - Entrepreneurial activity - The impact of childhood T2 - Annual meeting proceedings, Academy of Management Y1 - 2016 UR - http://proceedings.aom.org/content/2016/1/13740 IS - 1 SP - 13740 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Thommes, Kirsten A1 - Oertel, Simon T1 - Elements of Organizational Identity and the Role of a Firm’s History T2 - Annual meeting proceedings, Academy of Management Y1 - 2016 UR - http://proceedings.aom.org/content/2016/1/13754 IS - 1 SP - 13754 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Thommes, Kirsten A1 - Grund, Christian T1 - The Role of Contract Types for Employees’ Public Service Motivation T2 - Schmalenbach Business Review N2 - The intention of “doing good for society” is regarded to be a crucial motivator for employees in the public sector in order for them to perform well. Recent research in the public sector literature calls for a deeper understanding of how this specific public service motivation (PSM) is shaped. In our paper, we analyze how different degrees of inclusion in the public sector matter for PSM. We investigate how prospects of employment relations (fixed-term versus permanent contracts) and temporal differences (part-time versus full-time employment) moderate PSM in the public and in the private service. Our findings show that aspects of PSM are related by these employment characteristics in various ways, suggesting that the factors influencing PSM are multifaceted and that actual employment conditions need to be taken into consideration when assessing PSM. KW - Part-time work KW - Public sector KW - Public service motivation KW - Temporary contracts Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s41464-017-0033-z SN - 1439-2917 SN - 2194-072X ER - TY - GEN A1 - Thommes, Kirsten A1 - Klabuhn, Janny T1 - Age diversity and its effects on team performance T2 - Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2017.108 SN - 2151-6561 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 6 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Thommes, Kirsten A1 - Akkerman, Agnes T1 - Clean up your network - How a strike changed the social networks of a working team T2 - Team Performance Management Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1108/TPM-06-2017-0031 SN - 1352-7592 VL - 24 IS - 1/2 SP - 43 EP - 63 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Grund, Christian A1 - Harbring, Christine A1 - Thommes, Kirsten T1 - Group (Re-)formation in Public Good Games: The Tale of the Bad Apple? T2 - Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2017.11.009 SN - 0167-2681 VL - 145 SP - 306 EP - 319 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Thommes, Kirsten ED - Müller, David T1 - Managementpraktiken in KMU T2 - Controlling für kleine und mittlere Unternehmen Y1 - 2017 SN - 978-3-11-051487-2 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110517163-015 SP - 368 EP - 393 PB - De Gruyter Oldenbourg CY - Berlin ET - 2. Auflage ER - TY - GEN A1 - Oertel, Simon A1 - Thommes, Kirsten T1 - History as a source of organizational identity creation T2 - Organization Studies Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840618800112 SN - 1741-3044 SN - 0170-8406 VL - 39 IS - 12 SP - 1709 EP - 1731 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Oertel, Simon A1 - Thommes, Kirsten A1 - Walgenbach, Peter T1 - Shadows of the past: The effect of communist heritage on employee consultation T2 - Industrial and Labor Relations Review Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0019793916639554 SN - 2162-271X SN - 0019-7939 VL - 69 IS - 3 SP - 683 EP - 713 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Thommes, Kirsten A1 - Klabuhn, Janny T1 - Age and tenure diversity on the work floor – evidence from a natural field experiment in production T2 - Evidence-Based HRM N2 - Purpose – Past research on how to compose a team is ambiguous, especially with respect to diversity dimensions. The authors argue that previous inconsistencies in results have arisen for two main reasons. First, there is a lack of clarity about the concept of age diversity, as age separation, age variety and age disparity are frequently used synonymously, but capture very different aspects of diversity. Second, in many research settings, age and tenure diversity have been intertwined. When staffing teams, many staff managers ask for staffing advise concerning staff diversity in order to enhance efficiency. This staffing problem is mainly a question how homogeneous and heterogeneous teams should be composed. In this paper, the authors capture both – age and tenure diversity – as well as their interaction and argue that age separation and tenure variety are most likely to affect team performance in a routine task. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – The authors are testing the hypothesis using rich quantitative field data from a steel company. Findings – The results show that age separation decreases performance while tenure variety increases performance. Moreover, the beneficial effects of tenure variety cannot arise when age separation is too large. Research limitations/implications – The authors show that diversity research is very sensitive to the operationalization of diversity. Practical implications – Managers can benefit from the study by learning how to optimally staff teams: while age diversity should be low, tenure diversity can be high. Originality/value – Due to the unique data set, the authors can separate the influence of tenure and age diversity. Keywords Personnel economics, Organizational behaviour, Human resource management (general), Work performance and productivity, Teamwork Paper type Research paper KW - Personnel economics KW - Organizational behaviour KW - Human resource management (general) KW - Work performance and productivity KW - Teamwork Y1 - 2019 UR - https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/EBHRM-04-2019-0033/full/html U6 - https://doi.org/10.1108/EBHRM-04-2019-0033 SN - 2049-3991 VL - 9 IS - 1 SP - 95 EP - 117 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Hoffmann, Christin A1 - Thommes, Kirsten T1 - Using loss aversion to incentivize energy efficiency in a principal–agent context—Evidence from a field experiment T2 - Economics Letters N2 - Promoting energy-efficient behavior of agents in a principal–agent context simultaneously decreases costs for firms and mitigates CO2 emissions. Along this line, we analyze the effect of incentive framing on energy-efficient driving behavior. Our results contribute to the understanding of the drawbacks of loss framing. In a situation with persistent labor market relations, an extremely low bonus, and heterogeneous prior performance, the introduction of a bonus framed as a gain outperforms that of a bonus framed as a loss. KW - Energy-efficient behavior KW - Loss aversion KW - Field experiment Y1 - 2020 UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176520300264 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2020.108984 VL - Volume 189 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Goldbach, Carina A1 - Hoffmann, Christin A1 - Hoppe, Julia Amelie A1 - Pitz, Thomas A1 - Thommes, Kirsten T1 - The fast and the furious—An experimental investigation of the pace of life and risky speed choice in traffic T2 - PLOS ONE N2 - Despite discernible improvements in the last decades, speeding is still a pertinent problem for road safety, fuel efficiency, and greenhouse gas mitigation. In order to understand individual speeding decisions, we need a better understanding of who speeds. In our paper, we test whether individuals' general pace of life is associated with speeding decisions. We use a novel speed-choice experiment that confronts participants with a scenario in which they repeatedly decide between driving fast or slow. This decision is associated with different accident risks. Before the experiment, each participant's pace of life was measured. Our results show that individuals with a slower pace of life are more likely to choose slow in the experiment and are also more likely to switch to slow, even when they had success by driving fast in the preliminary round. Therefore, individuals' pace of life may contribute to our understanding of speeding. Y1 - 2020 UR - https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0236589 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0236589 SN - 1932-6203 VL - 15 IS - 7 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Hoffmann, Christin A1 - Thommes, Kirsten T1 - Combining Egalitarian and Proportional Sharing rules in Team Tournaments to Incentivize Energy-Efficient Behavior in a Principal-Agent Context T2 - Organization & Environment N2 - Triggering the energy-efficient behavior of agents in firms simultaneously decreases costs and mitigates CO2 emissions. If firms use team tournaments to increase energy-efficient behavior and thus employee performance, they may face unintended consequences, like a bifurcation effect: Individuals drop out if they believe that they cannot win the contest. By contrast, high-performing employees may overexert themselves. Additionally, some individuals might be tempted to free-ride. In a field experiment with truck drivers, we analyze whether proportional sharing of the bonus within teams based on individual effort instead of egalitarian sharing reduces both bifurcation and free-riding during team tournaments. Our results reveal that (1) the team contest improves performance; (2) this increase in performance is overall slightly stronger under the proportional than under the egalitarian sharing rule, using ceteris paribus comparisons; and (3) the performance increase is mainly driven by the team member performing worse. Y1 - 2020 UR - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1086026620945343 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/1086026620945343 SN - 1552-7417 VL - 35 (2022) IS - 2 SP - 307 EP - 331 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Hoffmann, Christin A1 - Thommes, Kirsten T1 - Can digital feedback increase employee performance and energy efficiency in firms? Evidence from a field experiment T2 - Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization N2 - Giving performance feedback to increase employee productivity has shown ambiguous results: Many laboratory studies have demonstrated a statistically significant effect of feedback on performance, but the effect is less evident in the field. In addition, the effects of digital feedback are not well understood. This feedback differs from other types of feedback as it is personalized, but not generated and provided by another human, e.g., the supervisor, but by a machine. We conducted a field experiment in which we introduced digital feedback to improve truck drivers' performance by enhancing their energy-efficient driving behavior. Our results show that digital feedback led to a statistically significant but small overall improvement in energy efficiency and performance that is driven by the improvement of initially very good- and very bad-performing drivers. This effect is robust, even when considering the differences in the room for improvement relative to the initial performance. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2020.09.034 SN - 0167-2681 SN - 1879-1751 VL - 180 SP - 49 EP - 65 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Hoffmann, Christin A1 - Thommes, Kirsten T1 - Seizing the Opportunity for Automation—How Traffic Density Determines Truck Drivers' Use of Cruise Control T2 - IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1109/THMS.2022.3212335 SN - 2168-2291 SN - 2168-2305 VL - 52 IS - 6 SP - 1205 EP - 1215 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Hoffmann, Christin A1 - Thommes, Kirsten T1 - Can leaders motivate employees’ energy-efficient behavior with thoughtful communication? T2 - Journal of Environmental Economics and Management N2 - We study the effect of an employer’s communication concerning energy-efficient behavior on a firm’s employees’ behavioral responses. The management aims to enhance energy-efficient behavior performance by irregularly sending online messages to remote employees. We break down each message, analyzing the positive or negative emotions conveyed, collective or individual orientation, and ease of language. Comparing employees’ daily energy efficiency after receiving a message to their daily performance without a previous message, we find that messages generally result in an immediate increase in efficiency. Messages conveying negative emotions and those making a distinction between the manager and the employees have a smaller effect than messages conveying positive emotions and emphasizing a collective orientation that includes both the management and employees. Additionally, shorter messages are more likely to induce improved efficiency. Sending messages significantly impacts driver performance for up to six days after the message, resulting in economically relevant cost reductions. KW - Energy efficiency KW - Internal communication KW - Natural language processing KW - Employee engagement KW - Psycho-linguistics Y1 - 2024 UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095069624000640 VL - 125 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Hoffmann, Christin A1 - Thommes, Kirsten T1 - Can leaders motivate employees' energy-efficient behavior with thoughtful communication? T2 - Journal of Environmental Economics and Management N2 - We study the effect of an employer’s communication concerning energy-efficient behavior on a firm’s employees’ behavioral responses. The management aims to enhance energy-efficient behavior performance by irregularly sending online messages to remote employees. We break down each message, analyzing the positive or negative emotions conveyed, collective or individual orientation, and ease of language. Comparing employees’ daily energy efficiency after receiving a message to their daily performance without a previous message, we find that messages generally result in an immediate increase in efficiency. Messages conveying negative emotions and those making a distinction between the manager and the employees have a smaller effect than messages conveying positive emotions and emphasizing a collective orientation that includes both the management and employees. Additionally, shorter messages are more likely to induce improved efficiency. Sending messages significantly impacts driver performance for up to six days after the message, resulting in economically relevant cost reductions. KW - Energyefficiency KW - Energy Economics KW - Employee Motivation KW - Communication KW - Natural Language Processing Tools Y1 - 2024 UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095069624000640?via%3Dihub U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2024.102990 SN - 0095-0696 VL - 125 SP - 1 EP - 24 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Hoffmann, Christin A1 - Thommes, Kirsten T1 - Clear Roads and Dirty Air? Indirect effects of reduced private traffic congestion on emissions from heavy traffic T2 - Journal of Cleaner Production Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.135053 SN - 0959-6526 VL - 381,2 ER -