Too Good to Be True? The Unintended Signaling Effects of Educational Prestige on External Expectations of Team Performance
通过两个实验研究，发现高管的教育背景和种族共同影响外部分析师对公司的股票估值，高教育声望的白人高管获得最高估值，而同样背景的非裔美国人却得到最低估值，原因在于外界认为非裔美国人可能因优待政策入学。
In this paper we report the results of two experimental studies designed to test how demographic characteristics affect outsiders' assessments of a firm's top managers. We draw on theories of evaluation and status characteristics to examine the interactive effects of managers' racial characteristics and educational prestige on external perceptions. In the first study, we find that top executives' educational background and race affected analysts' valuation of a firm's stock. Outside analysts made the highest stock price projections for firms led by white executives who had highly prestigious educational backgrounds but made the lowest valuations for firms led by African Americans with the same prestigious education. We posit that the moderating effect of executives' racial characteristics stems from outsiders' assumptions that African American managers received preferential treatment in the admissions process for high prestige universities. In the second study, we find that when we explicitly removed the possibility of preferential selection, analysts gave the same stock valuation to firms led by white and African American executives with high educational prestige. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and management.