WIAS Visiting Researcher Seminar: “Participation Trophies: How Owner Ideology Creates Racial Sinecures for 14th/15th Player Positions on NBA Rosters” (6/3)
Abstract
In this study, we reacquaint management scholars with the corporate practice of sinecures, which are scarce, selectively apportioned, value-bearing, and duty-light role positions. We theorize that one reason racial discrimination in hiring and retention may perpetuate—despite legal and constitutional prohibitions against such discrimination—is that organizations create, apportion, and maintain sinecures for persons of different races in accordance with the political ideological preferences of the organization’s owner. Using an institutionally-created position from the National Basketball Association—the “14th/15th player” slots that derive from requirements that all teams have no more than 15 players on their rosters but can only play 13 of them per game—we examine how political ideology of the team owner interacts with player race to yield preferential hiring/retention outcomes. Utilizing daily game data from NBA players from the 2005-2006 through 2018-2019 seasons, this study demonstrates that White players have a higher hazard of being acquired as “14th/15th players” as the political ideology of the team owners grows more conservative, and that the effect is even higher for White U.S. players. We also find a lower hazard of White players being traded away from any position on the team (not just 14th/15th player positions) when the team is owned by politically conservative owners. The converse holds for teams with liberal owners. Thus, we find strong ideological effects in both “demand-side” and “supply-side” markets for athletes, as well as evidence of the apportionment of sinecures based on race, but not their maintenance.
Speaker
COLE, Benjamin M. (Professor, Fordham University)
Date&Time
June 3, 2026 (Wed.) 16:00 – 17:40
Venue
Room #903, Building #11, Waseda Campus, Waseda University
Prospected Audience
Students, Graduate students, Faculty members, Research members, General Participants
Language
English
Organizer
MITSUHASHI, Hitoshi (Professor, Faculty of Commerce)
Registration
Pre-registration required: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScvPnOezb7gEroJR2mHqIwtLdKQu1QDQbN0OBIOfL_6JNjDjg/viewform
(Deadline: May 15)
