Spotlight Personnel: How Hiring and Turnover Drive Service Performance Versus Demand
研究德国职业足球队的球员招聘与离职如何影响比赛胜率和门票销售，发现招聘数量降低绩效但提升需求，招聘质量则两者兼得，为娱乐业管理者提供决策参考。
In many sectors of the entertainment industry, a few employees attract the public spotlight when performing the core service. For example, in professional team sports, a team of players competes in games, and in TV shows, a cast of artists acts in different episodes. These employees, coined “spotlight personnel,” are an essential but expensive element of ongoing service delivery. Despite their importance and cost, very little is known about how changes in spotlight personnel affect service performance and demand. To address this gap, this article uses unique data on professional German soccer teams, tracking the quantity (number of players) and quality (average transfer price) of spotlight personnel hiring (incoming transfers) and turnover (outgoing transfers), objective service performance (winning percentage), and demand (ticket sales) across four decades, using both traditional and novel time series methods. The results show that service performance and demand are primarily affected by spotlight personnel hiring rather than by turnover. Hiring quantity decreases service performance yet increases demand, whereas hiring quality benefits both service performance and demand. The analysis further uncovers that these effects are subject to dynamic interactions and nonlinearities. Investment scenarios showcase how understanding these effects can substantially improve managerial decision making.