Good to Go First? Position Effects in Expert Evaluation of Early-Stage Ventures

There is often considerable anxiety and conflicting advice concerning the benefits of presenting/being evaluated first. We thus investigate how expert evaluators vary in their evaluations of entrepreneurial proposals based upon the order in which they are evaluated. Our research setting is a premiere innovation fund competition in Beijing, China, where the prize money at stake is economically meaningful, and evaluators are quasi-randomly assigned to evaluate written grant proposals without the possibility of peer influence. This enables us to credibly recover a causal position effect. We also theorize and test how heterogeneity in evaluators’ prior (context-specific) judging experience moderates position effects. Overall, we find that a proposal evaluated first requires total assets in the top 10th percentile to merely equal the evaluation of a proposal in the bottom 10th percentile that is not evaluated first. Firm and evaluator fixed-effects models yield consistent findings. We consider evaluation design elements that may mollify these position effects in the discussion section. This paper was accepted by Sridhar Tayur, entrepreneurship and innovation.

Genotypic Variation and Talent Identification in Sports

Top performance of athletes is not limited to the demand of fame, public recognition, sponsorship, and prize money but genetic inheritance contributes a prime role to hold such traits. Recent years, we have witnessed the rise of sports specific tests that identify person’s athletic talents, but human vary on genetic factors which silently work to achieve success in sports. Recent progress on the genetic determination in the sports sciences offer great perspective to analyze the genotype profile associated with the athletes. One of the most used advances in this field is the identification of variations in the DNA sequence, known as Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs). Genetic evaluations should be combined with other tools to get an accurate identification of athletes and their respective fields to achieve optimum success.

Scientific prizes and the extraordinary growth of scientific topics

Fast growing scientific topics have famously been key harbingers of the new frontiers of science, yet, large-scale analyses of their genesis and impact are rare. We investigated one possible factor connected with a topic’s extraordinary growth: scientific prizes. Our longitudinal analysis of nearly all recognized prizes worldwide and over 11,000 scientific topics from 19 disciplines indicates that topics associated with a scientific prize experience extraordinary growth in productivity, impact, and new entrants. Relative to matched non-prizewinning topics, prizewinning topics produce 40% more papers and 33% more citations, retain 55% more scientists, and gain 37 and 47% more new entrants and star scientists, respectively, in the first five-to-ten years after the prize. Funding do not account for a prizewinning topic’s growth. Rather, growth is positively related to the degree to which the prize is discipline-specific, conferred for recent research, or has prize money. These findings reveal new dynamics behind scientific innovation and investment.

Development and Validation of KASP Assays for the Genotyping of Racing Performance-Associated Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms in Pigeons

Pigeon racing’s recent upturn in popularity can be attributed in part to the huge prize money involved in these competitions. As such, methods to select pigeons with desirable genetic characteristics for racing or for selective breeding have also been gaining more interest. Polymerase chain reaction—restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) for genotyping-specific genes is one of the most commonly used molecular techniques, which can be costly, laborious and time consuming. The present study reports the development of an alternative genotyping method that employs Kompetitive Allele Specific Polymerase Chain Reaction (KASP) technology with specifically designed primers to detect previously reported racing performance-associated polymorphisms within the LDHA, MTYCB, and DRD4 genes. To validate, KASP assays and PCR-RFLP assays results from 107 samples genotyped for each of the genes were compared and the results showed perfect (100%) agreement of both methods. The developed KASP assays present an alternative rapid, reliable, and cost-effective method to identify polymorphisms in pigeons.

Honorary Decrees from Ephesos for Winning Athletes in Panhellenic Games

A marble block from Ephesos bears the text of three honorary decrees dating back to 300 B.C. ca. According to the inscriptions, the city council granted citizenship and prize money to young athletes who distinguished themselves in prestigious panhellenic games. The main figure in the second inscription, Athenodoros, ἰσοτελής in Ephesos before being granted citizenship, is mentioned in I.Ephesos 2005. On the occasion of this decree, his talent earned him a subvention from the city; a similar grant might have been assigned to another rising athlete, Timonax, referred to in the third inscription.

Prize Money Earnings of Tennis Professionals and the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on the earnings of tennis professionals. With the COVID-19 pandemic being an unmatched blow to the global economy resulting in one of the largest global recessions in recorded history, it might be expected that some sectors will be hit harder than others. Tennis world was particularly strongly hit, practically stopping for five long months. The corona year provides a unique occasion to revisit the issue of the earnings of top tennis professionals and make comparisons with the normal tennis years. The opportunity to collect the fresh data makes these comparisons interesting and timely.

The gender gap in aversion to COVID-19 exposure: Evidence from professional tennis

We study the gender differences in aversion to COVID-19 exposure using a natural experiment of the 2020 US Open. It was the first major tennis tournament after the season had been paused for six months, held with the same rules and prize money for men and women. We analyze the gender gap in the propensity to voluntarily withdraw because of COVID-19 concerns among players who were eligible and fit to play. We find that female players were significantly more likely than male players to have withdrawn from the 2020 US Open. While players from countries characterized by relatively high levels of trust and patience and relatively low levels of risk-taking were more likely to have withdrawn than their counterparts from other countries, female players exhibited significantly higher levels of aversion to pandemic exposure than male players even after cross-country differences in preferences are accounted for. About 15% of the probability of withdrawing that is explained by our model can be attributed to gender.

Going Green (and Not Being Just More Pro-Social): Do Attitude and Personality Specifically Influence Pro-Environmental Behavior?

The current research examines the extent to which attitudes and personality traits are predictive of pro-environmental behavior (PEB). Concretely, we tested the relationship between pro-environmental attitudes, HEXACO personality traits, and actual PEB (donating potential prize money to a pro-environmental organization; N = 257). Additionally, we controlled for the influence of helping behavior (donating to a pro-social organization) by addressing whether attitudes and personality have a distinct impact on PEB or whether people are more likely to engage in PEB because they act more pro-socially in general. Analyses included correlations, multiple linear regressions, mediations, and partial correlations. Pro-environmental attitude had the most robust association with PEB and mediated the influence of openness to experiences and honesty–humility on PEB. Importantly, the relationship of pro-environmental attitudes and personality (openness to experiences and honesty–humility) with PEB was unaffected by the participant’s helping behavior, suggesting that pro-environmental people mainly care about the environment and are not necessarily more pro-social in general.

Explorando la carrera dual en tenistas: diferencias según género y nivel competitivo (Exploring dual career in tennis players: gender and competitive level differences)

Los objetivos del presente estudio fueron: i) describir la carrera dual de tenistas de la Comunidad de Madrid; ii) analizar si existen diferencias en dicha carrera en función del género, y iii) del nivel de competición. Se elaboró un cuestionario ad-hoc teniendo como referencia el cues-tionario de percepción de los estudiantes universitarios-deportistas de alto nivel sobre la carrera dual, ESTPORT (Sánchez-Pato et al., 2016). La muestra estuvo formada por 60 tenistas (21.5± 2.8 años) residentes en la Comunidad de Madrid. De ellos, 55% eran hombres y un 45% eran mujeres. Entrenaban una media de 3.9 ± 1.3 días y 17.2 ± 6.2 horas a la semana. Los resultados confirman que superan cada curso académico en dos años aproximadamente, una falta de planificación de su futuro fuera de la carrera deportiva y una elevada identificación con el rol de deportista. Ellas tienen menos aspiraciones en su carrera tenística, quizás por el hecho que el circuito profesional de tenis femenino sea más modesto económicamente. En esa misma línea, al finalizar su carrera tenística las mujeres piensan dedicarse a trabajar en lo que estudien en ma-yor medida que los hombres. Los jugadores de nivel internacional tienen un alto compromiso con su carrera deportiva. Sus mayores dificultades para su carrera dual no son en relación a la falta de flexibilidad horaria para desarrollar ambas carreras. Se plantean recomendaciones prácticas para los profesionales que trabajen con estos deportistas. === The aims of this study were: i) to describe the dual career in tennis players from the Madrid Region; ii) to analyze if there are differences regarding gender, and iii) competition level. An ad-hoc questionnaire was developed taking as reference the perception questionnaire of high-level university students-athletes about the dual career, ESTPORT (Sánchez-Pato et al., 2016). The sample was comprised by 60 tennis players (21.5 ± 2.8 years) residents in the Madrid Region. Fifty-five percent were men while forty-five percent were women. They trained an average of 3.9 ± 1.3 days and 17.2 ± 6.2 hours per week. Results confirm that each school year takes them about two years for passing it, a lack of planning a future out of the sport career and a high identification as athletes. Regarding gender comparison, women has less expectations on their sport career. This perception could be due the lower prize money in the women’s circuit. Women planned to work in relation to the studies the aim to finish. Regarding the competitive level, international level tennis players have a high commitment with the sport career. The main difficulties are not financial; they are the lack of flexibility at timetables to develop both careers. Practical insights for practitioners that work with tennis players are proposed.

eSports: a new industry

Research background: At the beginning of this century, the eSports industry was not yet a major player although it already existed as a niche of video and computer games. The importance and interest only began to increase with the rise of the internet and its infrastructure. Especially among the younger generation, eSports, today, has a significant meaning. Worldwide, professional players duel each other in countless tournaments online and offline and are enthusiastically celebrated by their millions of fans. Purpose of the article: The purpose of this paper is to analyze how eSports has developed in recent years since its first boom phase as well as to analyze its growth factors and how it has benefited from the COVID-19 pandemic compared to traditional competitive sports. Methods: The global eSports revenues and prize money values are analyzed. The first step is defining the eSports term. The second is looking at the development of eSports financials since its first boom and onward. The COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts are then looked at. Finally, growth factors for the increasing numbers are analyzed. Findings & Value added: The findings show that eSports has gained significant importance in recent years. In particular, the strong increase in global eSports revenue and the associated increase in players’ prize money clearly show that eSports will continue to gain importance and economic strength in the future.