From the Office of Public Affairs | http://www.news.ku.edu

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Contact: Jon Niccum, KU News Service, 785-864-7633, [email protected]
Reliable internal candidates preferred over more qualified external ones, according to new study
LAWRENCE – Working hard is regarded as a strong motivation for earning a promotion. But new research suggests companies that are hiring favor such extra effort when displayed by internal candidates even more than better-qualified external candidates.
“People will sometimes undervalue the work they’ve done, the knowledge they’ve gathered by being at a specific location and the relationship they’ve developed with a manager. So when making hiring decisions, we show how that quality really matters,” said Jeremy Lill, associate professor of business and the Jack and Shirley Howard Mid-Career Professor at the University of Kansas.
His new paper “Promote Internally or Hire Externally? The Role of Gift Exchange and Performance Measurement Precision” reveals that employees exert costly effort to increase the chance of being promoted, and they raise their effort level as the hiring decision becomes imminent. Managers respond by promoting those who exert greater effort, despite employees’ inferior ability compared to external candidates. The article is published in the Journal of Accounting Research.
“When managers are deciding how to fill an open position, they’re either going to promote internally within the organization or go externally and find somebody to come in. In general, in the external pool of candidates there’s going to be somebody who is more qualified, simply because it’s a broader pool,” said Lill, who co-wrote the article with Eric Chan of the University of Texas and Victor Maas of the University of Amsterdam.
But their research indicates superior resumes become secondary considerations when compared to valued qualities exhibited by internal candidates. The study also determines that less precise performance measurement systems, like those used in remote work and less-monitored labor settings, presents internal employees with even more of an advantage when it comes to capitalizing on promotions.
“What we find is if there’s not a precise measurement of what people are doing, many people will work hard to overcome that imprecision, and managers are more likely to reward people with internal promotions because of this kind of ambiguity that’s out there,” Lill said.
Basically, employers are investing in trusting workers to do the right thing. And when evidence implies their effort is competent and efficient, such individuals are usually rewarded.
His team tested this theory using a two-stage experiment involving 138 business students from the University of Texas acting as employee and manager prior to an impending hiring decision. In Stage 1, the employee selects an effort level during several initial periods – higher effort levels prove more costly to the individual but produce higher expected output. At the end of each period, the manager learns the employee’s output.
In stage 2, a new higher-level job becomes available, and the manager must fill this slot by either promoting the current employee or hiring an external candidate. If the manager chooses to promote the employee to the higher-level job, then the external applicant will fill the employee’s original job; if the external applicant is hired to fill the higher-level job, then the current employee will remain in the original job. After the manager makes this promote/hire decision, the current and newly hired workers select their effort levels in each of three later periods.
“We’re testing the gift exchange theory,” he said of a metric designed to determine the effort poured in by an individual in a person-to-person relationship.
“In other settings, treatments and observations where that theory would apply, then I would expect this would replicate in a real-world setting. Essentially, gifts beget gifts.”
Having also attended KU as an undergraduate, Lill has served as a faculty member since 2019. He teaches managerial accounting, and his research focuses on control system design and employee motivation.
“Working hard before promotion — especially going above and beyond your normal job description— is taking a risk because you’d much rather not be doing it than doing it,” Lill said.
“But we find that, in general, managers do respond. They appreciate and reward that risk.”

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Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, director of news and media relations, [email protected]

Today’s News is a free service from the Office of Public Affairs

From the Office of Public Affairs | http://www.news.ku.edu

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Contact: Rick Hellman, KU News Service, 785-864-8852, [email protected], @RickHellman
KU professor curates summer show in Seoul to create space for mother-artists
LAWRENCE — Here’s how hard it is to be a mother and artist in South Korea these days: Two of the 14 artists Sunyoung Cheong had lined up for a show there this summer had to drop out.
“I started with the 14 artists last year, but the one of them, her husband got a new job in America. They moved to California, so she couldn’t do it,” said Cheong, University of Kansas assistant professor of visual art. “And the other one, she is the sole caretaker for her children due to her husband’s busy job, and her husband is out of town. So she couldn’t do it either. It’s difficult for them to stay for the exhibition. And yet that is my role as curator – to encourage mother-artists to continue their art practice under discouraging and unexpected circumstances.”
Cheong, who makes jewelry, often with a honeybee motif, said she began thinking about a show of mother-artists nearly a decade ago when she was a graduate student and a young mother herself.
“My plan was to create a platform for mother-artists, mostly in metalsmithing — some of them focusing on hollowware and some of them focusing on jewelry,” Cheong said. “Most of these artists had good careers; they all have MFA degrees, and then they did successful exhibitions before they become mothers.
“But in Korean society, the conventional idea is that child care is all the mother’s job. It should be their No. 1 priority, their duty. So even though these artists had great careers, once they have children, it’s really difficult to continue their career as an artist, because being an artist is not thought of as an actual job.”
Moreover, Cheong said, many South Korean artists live in high-rise buildings in Seoul and other big cities, where it’s difficult, if not impossible, to maintain a studio and particularly to work with metal.
“The impact of having children in craft is much more critical because disciplines like metalsmithing or ceramics require heavy equipment, various tools and chemicals that are not suitable for home studios with young children,” Cheong said. “Oftentimes these studios require a good-sized space with good ventilation. This makes it very challenging, especially for artists who live in city like Seoul.”
To address this issue to the public and to support mother-artists, this curatorial project investigates why motherhood affects the life of visual artists, particularly in the craft discipline. It also gives an opportunity to think about how to create a sustainable platform for talented mother-artists in future art practice.
“I wanted to create small communities to support each other and give them some steppingstones so that they can continue to do their practice,” Cheong said.
Cheong said she began curating the show in earnest before the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns caused a delay. Then, during her last visit to Seoul a year ago, Cheong stopped by the Gallery Ahwon, which she described as a respected home for arts and crafts there, to pitch the operators on her idea for a show of mother-artists. And although she had no previous affiliation with the gallery, she got the green light.
Cheong said many of the artists couldn’t commit to creating new works for the show, so she didn’t assign them a particular theme to execute. Rather, she said, the mother-artist herself is the show’s theme.
“They can make anything they can possibly make in their circumstance,” Cheong said. “If they don’t have a studio in their home, they can use whatever material they can use to create the work. … It doesn’t have to be multiples; you can create just one work. And if you don’t have access to a studio for using metal, you can just use alternative materials like paper or fabric.”
Thus, one of the objects in the show, Cheong said, was created by knitting metal wire. Another was created by casting plastic resin. Cheong is bringing some of her jewelry.
The show runs July 5-15, and Cheong said she hoped a similar exhibition could be repeated every other year.
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KU News Service
1450 Jayhawk Blvd.
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Phone: 785-864-3256
Fax: 785-864-3339
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http://www.news.ku.edu

Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, director of news and media relations, [email protected]

Today’s News is a free service from the Office of Public Affairs