Dr Sarah Otner
Faculties, deparments and locations
- Faculty of Business and Social Sciences
- Department of Management
- Kingston Business School
- Kingston Hill
Senior Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour
- Email:
- s.otner@kingston.ac.uk
About
I am a behavioral scientist focused on how individuals gain and maintain social status for themselves, and how they judge deservingness to allocate social status to others. My principal research interests combine organization theory, strategy, networks, and innovation; I use approaches from economic sociology, social psychology, and economics. I adopt interdisciplinary research tools – including experimentation, computational social science, and mixed-methods approaches. Building on Robert K. Merton's theories of status and competition, I endeavor to identify pathways to impact for society to solve its "wicked problems", especially inequality.
Qualifications
- Ph.D.
- FHEA
- CMBE
- FRSA
Domains
I teach courses at all levels (Undergraduate through Executive MBA) in organizational behavior, organization theory, negotiations, networks, innovation, and leadership.
Qualifications
- External Examining (AdvanceHE)
- Case Method (Harvard Business Publishing)
- #IamRemarkable (Google)
- Writing Retreat Facilitator (Rowena Murray Method)
Courses taught
My research focuses on awards and prizes. I study the design of, and the mechanisms that drive, competitions. My current work involves peer effects among elites, and invisible status effects during blinded judging. A second stream of my research examines innovation tournaments, and particularly Grand Challenge prizes. My ongoing projects include: prize scarcity, prize sharing, establishment of new prizes, and prize refusals.
Refereed Publications - http://bit.ly/ScholarSMGO
Specialisms
- Status
- Prizes
- Networks
- Culture
- Innovation
Scholarly affiliations
- Academy of Management (USA)
- American Sociological Association
- British Academy of Management
- Women in Business Education
Publications
Many roads to success : broadening our views of academic career paths and advice
Livingston, Beth, Gloor, Jamie L., Ward, A. K., Gabriel, Allison S., Campbell, Joanna T., Block, Emily, Carter, Dorothy, French, Kimberly A., Frieder, Rachel, Hillebrandt, Annika, (Jasmine) Hu, Jia, Jones, Kristen P., Joseph, Dana L., Junker, Nina M., Mandeville, Ashley, Otner, Sarah M. G., Patel, Amanda S., Paustian-Underdahl, Samantha, Priesemuth, Manuela, Shockley, Kristen M. and Shoss, Mindy, 2024, Journal of Management (50), 4, pp 1186-1197
Standing on the shoulders of giants : how star scientists influence their co-authors
Betancourt, Nathan, Jochem, Torsten and Otner, Sarah M. G., 2022, Research Policy (52), 1, pp 104624
Same data, different conclusions : radical dispersion in empirical results when independent analysts operationalize and test the same hypothesis
Schweinsberg, Martin, Feldman, Michael, Staub, Nicola, van den Akker, Olmo R., van Aert, Robbie C.M., van Assen, Marcel A.L.M., Liu, Yang, Althoff, Tim, Heer, Jeffrey, Kale, Alex, Mohamed, Zainab, Amireh, Hashem, Venkatesh Prasad, Vaishali, Bernstein, Abraham, Robinson, Emily, Snellman, Kaisa, Amy Sommer, S., Otner, Sarah M.G., Robinson, David, Madan, Nikhil, Silberzahn, Raphael, Goldstein, Pavel, Tierney, Warren, Murase, Toshio, Mandl, Benjamin, Viganola, Domenico, Strobl, Carolin, Schaumans, Catherine B.C., Kelchtermans, Stijn, Naseeb, Chan, Mason Garrison, S., Yarkoni, Tal, Richard Chan, C.S., Adie, Prestone, Alaburda, Paulius, Albers, Casper, Alspaugh, Sara, Alstott, Jeff, Nelson, Andrew A., Ariño de la Rubia, Eduardo, Arzi, Adbi, Bahník, Štěpán, Baik, Jason, Winther Balling, Laura, Banker, Sachin, AA Baranger, David, Barr, Dale J., Barros-Rivera, Brenda, Bauer, Matt, Blaise, Enuh, Boelen, Lisa, Bohle Carbonell, Katerina, Briers, Robert A., Burkhard, Oliver, Canela, Miguel-Angel, Castrillo, Laura, Catlett, Timothy, Chen, Olivia, Clark, Michael, Cohn, Brent, Coppock, Alex, Cugueró-Escofet, Natàlia, Curran, Paul G., Cyrus-Lai, Wilson, Dai, David, Valentino Dalla Riva, Giulio, Danielsson, Henrik, Russo, Rosaria de F.S.M., de Silva, Niko, Derungs, Curdin, Dondelinger, Frank, Duarte de Souza, Carolina, Tyson Dube, B., Dubova, Marina, Mark Dunn, Ben, Adriaan Edelsbrunner, Peter, Finley, Sara, Fox, Nick, Gnambs, Timo, Gong, Yuanyuan, Grand, Erin, Greenawalt, Brandon, Han, Dan, Hanel, Paul H.P., Hong, Antony B., Hood, David, Hsueh, Justin, Huang, Lilian, Hui, Kent N., Hultman, Keith A., Javaid, Azka, Ji Jiang, Lily, Jong, Jonathan, Kamdar, Jash, Kane, David, Kappler, Gregor, Kaszubowski, Erikson, Kavanagh, Christopher M., Khabsa, Madian, Kleinberg, Bennett, Kouros, Jens, Krause, Heather, Krypotos, Angelos-Miltiadis, Lavbič, Dejan, Ling Lee, Rui, Leffel, Timothy, Yang Lim, Wei, Liverani, Silvia, Loh, Bianca, Lønsmann, Dorte, Wei Low, Jia, Lu, Alton, MacDonald, Kyle, Madan, Christopher R., Hjorth Madsen, Lasse, Maimone, Christina, Mangold, Alexandra, Marshall, Adrienne, Ester Matskewich, Helena, Mavon, Kimia, McLain, Katherine L., McNamara, Amelia A., McNeill, Mhairi, Mertens, Ulf, Miller, David, Moore, Ben, Moore, Andrew, Nantz, Eric, Nasrullah, Ziauddin, Nejkovic, Valentina, Nell, Colleen S, Arthur Nelson, Andrew, Nilsonne, Gustav, Nolan, Rory, O'Brien, Christopher E., O'Neill, Patrick, O'Shea, Kieran, Olita, Toto, Otterbacher, Jahna, Palsetia, Diana, Pereira, Bianca, Pozdniakov, Ivan, Protzko, John, Reyt, Jean-Nicolas, Riddle, Travis, (Akmal) Ridhwan Omar Ali, Amal, Ropovik, Ivan, Rosenberg, Joshua M., Rothen, Stephane, Schulte-Mecklenbeck, Michael, Sharma, Nirek, Shotwell, Gordon, Skarzynski, Martin, Stedden, William, Stodden, Victoria, Stoffel, Martin A., Stoltzman, Scott, Subbaiah, Subashini, Tatman, Rachael, Thibodeau, Paul H., Tomkins, Sabina, Valdivia, Ana, Druijff-van de Woestijne, Gerrieke B., Viana, Laura, Villesèche, Florence, Duncan Wadsworth, W., Wanders, Florian, Watts, Krista, Wells, Jason D, Whelpley, Christopher E., Won, Andy, Wu, Lawrence, Yip, Arthur, Youngflesh, Casey, Yu, Ju-Chi, Zandian, Arash, Zhang, Leilei, Zibman, Chava and Luis Uhlmann, Eric, 2021, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (165), pp 228-249
Crowdsourcing hypothesis tests : making transparent how design choices shape research results.
Landy, Justin F., Jia, Miaolei (Liam), Ding, Isabel L., Viganola, Domenico, Tierney, Warren, Dreber, Anna, Johannesson, Magnus, Pfeiffer, Thomas, Ebersole, Charles R., Gronau, Quentin F., Ly, Alexander, van den Bergh, Don, Marsman, Maarten, Derks, Koen, Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan, Proctor, Andrew, Bartels, Daniel M., Bauman, Christopher W., Brady, William J., Cheung, Felix, Cimpian, Andrei, Dohle, Simone, Donnellan, M. Brent, Hahn, Adam, Hall, Michael P., Jiménez-Leal, William, Johnson, David J., Lucas, Richard E., Monin, Benoît, Montealegre, Andres, Mullen, Elizabeth, Pang, Jun, Ray, Jennifer, Reinero, Diego A., Reynolds, Jesse, Sowden, Walter, Storage, Daniel, Su, Runkun, Tworek, Christina M., Van Bavel, Jay J., Walco, Daniel, Wills, Julian, Xu, Xiaobing, Yam, Kai Chi, Yang, Xiaoyu, Cunningham, William A., Schweinsberg, Martin, Urwitz, Molly, The Crowdsourcing Hypothesis Tests Collaboration, ..., Otner, Sarah M. G., ... and Uhlmann, Eric L., 2020, Psychological Bulletin (146), 5, pp 451-479
Near-winners in status competitions : neglected sources of dynamism in the Matthew Effect
Otner, Sarah M. G., 2018, Journal of Management Inquiry (27), 4, pp 374-377
Older, but wiser? "The Matthew Effect" at 50 : introduction to the dialog
Otner, Sarah M. G., 2018, Journal of Management Inquiry (27), 4, pp 359-361
The perception of status : how we infer the status of others from their social relationships
Betancourt, Nathan, Kovács, Balázs and Otner, Sarah M. G., 2018, Network Science (6), 3, pp 319-347
Funding innovation through prizes
Otner, Sarah (2023). Oxford, U.K.: (Innovation Caucus)
The smell of victory : prizes in the fragrance industry
Otner, Sarah(2023). In: 39th EGOS Colloquium : Pre-Colloquium Development Workshop (PDW) : Social Evaluations in Organization Studies, 06-08 Jul 2023 :Cagliari, Italy
Grant-giving governance : do near-winners make better judges?
Otner, Sarah(2022). In: The Conference on Field Experiments in Strategy (CFXS), 15-16 Sep 2022 :London, U.K.
Partisan divergence in political discourse in the UK Brexit referendum : consequences for culture and classification
Adorjani, Roland and Otner, Sarah(2022). In: 14th Annual Conference of the International Network of Analytical Sociologists (INAS), 26-27 May 2022 :Florence, Italy