PhD Theses

• Director: Dr Katharina Schmid, Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull
• Date of defense: November 22nd, 2024

Abstract:
First offers in negotiations hold significant relevance for negotiation outcomes, particularly regarding economic outcomes such as counteroffers and final agreements yet recent research has also begun to highlight the importance of relational measures, such as trust, in shaping negotiation outcomes. What remains less well understood is how the impact of first offers in distributive negotiations is affected by group characteristics of the negotiator issuing the first offer (i.e., the first offer maker) on the one hand, as well as the negotiator receiving the first offer (i.e., the offer receiver) on the other. With a particular focus on gender, the current thesis seeks to bridge this gap and examines the interplay between negotiator gender, intergroup bias and first offer extremity in the first offer effect, to understand how these processes jointly affect both economic and relational outcomes in distributive negotiations. To that end this thesis systematically investigates in 13 experimental studies whether : a) males and females respond differently to first offers, b) negotiators respond differently to first offers if they are made by an ingroup member vs. an outgroup member (based on gender ingroup or outgroup membership in particular, but also other groups such as ethnic or university group), c) whether there is an interplay between offer receiver gender and first offer maker group membership (i.e., whether males and females respond differently to first offers made by ingroup vs. outgroup members), and d) whether the interplay between offer receiver gender and first offer maker ingroup vs. outgroup membership depends on the extremity of the first offer. Findings consistently showed that male negotiators when in the offer receiver position responded to first offers in ways that ensured higher value claiming (i.e., higher economic outcome potential) compared to females. The results on intergroup biases were mixed, with some studies supporting the idea that negotiators tended to favour ingroup members over outgroup members in their responses to first offers but others failing to find clear support. Additionally, the extremity of first offers played a significant role, with females in particular being more influenced by relatively more extreme first offers compared to men, resulting in lower economic outcomes for female negotiators. The studies in this thesis add to the current state of knowledge on first offers in distributive negotiations, shedding light especially into the gender dynamics in the early stages of negotiations that can critically impact negotiation outcomes. Keywords: negotiation, first offers, gender differences, intergroup bias, anchor extremity.

• Director: Dr Ana Valenzuela, Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull
• Date of defense: January 17th, 2025

Abstract:
Consumers have been the centre of any marketing strategy in what is understood as modern marketing. However, strategic utilization of C2C interactions is relatively new. We are facing an ever-increasing influence of consumers on each other while we face the dissolution of producer-consumer distinction and witness the emergence of business models rooted in C2C interactions. In the face of these current trends, this dissertation takes a behavioural perspective to explore the current knowledge about C2C interactions in the consumer behaviour field while we expand it through additional contributions rooted in empirics based on controlled experiments. Additionally, this dissertation discusses managerial implications connected to these contributions in order to capitalize on C2C interactions for businesses, platforms, and individual sellers. The first paper in this dissertation synthesizes what we know about digitally mediated C2C interactions (e.g., social media, instant messaging, e-commerce platforms). It creates a categorization of digitally mediated C2C interactions, discusses challenges for traditional marketing approaches, and provides insights for marketers as well as future research ideas. The second paper explores an important process, anticipating essence threat, by which strangers' physical contact demotivates potential providers from supplying goods to peer-to-peer sharing platforms. We do so by separating metaphysical contagion from another process, that of physical contagion. The literature previously discussed physical contagion as the sole determinant of consumer contagion concerns. Finally, the last paper in this dissertation examines the underdog effect in a peer-to-peer context to identify if and how consumers support disadvantaged individuals’ business success. The study reveals that underdog peer-providers can collect more money in crowdfunding but not more positive reviews for their products due to justice concerns. Overall, the three papers in this dissertation enhance our understanding and knowledge of consumer-to-consumer interactions which are substantially central to most digital contexts of today.

• Director: Dr Ioana Schiopu & Dr Calin Arcalean, Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull
• Date of defense: April 30th, 2025

Abstract:
This dissertation aims to study job polarization patterns in European labor markets, with a focus on gender differences. Recent theoretical literature has emphasized the role of structural change in explaining the job polarization patterns observed in developed economies during the past few decades. I document that labor markets have become more polarized in European regional economies since 2002, and study empirically the link between structural change and job polarization at the sub-national level. The analysis reveals that changes in the industrial structure are a significant source of job polarization. I find that a higher share of services leads to an increase in the share of employment at both ends of the wage distribution, and a decline in the middle. The second part of the thesis analyzes the response of employment to structural change across genders. The empirical study suggests that the secular rise of the service sector leads to stronger declines in the share of middle-wage male jobs, and larger increases in the share of low-wage female jobs. After the Great Recession, responses across genders change: while a rise in services continues to lead to a hollowing-out of middle-wage male occupations, it also seems to drive the upgrading pattern observed for women since 2011. Lastly, while there is considerable evidence of job polarization in Spain, studies focusing on the aftermath of the Great Recession are scarce. I document that the Spanish labor market continued to polarize after the Great Recession and show surprising results across genders: men exhibit a downgrade in their employment structure since 2011, whereas women show a clear upgrading pattern. Developing a novel country-specific task database, I examine employment changes across genders from a task content approach. Results show that women over 30 years of age increase their shares in jobs intensive in cognitive and social content, while the opposite occurs among men.

• Director: Dr Lisa Hehenberger, Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull & Dr Ruth Aguilera, Northeastern University
• Date of defense: June 2nd, 2025

Abstract:
Social impact creation – an increasingly important organizational outcome –, requires effective governance within organizations and beyond. The purpose of this dissertation is thus to explore how organizations may govern social impact creation. The first chapter leverages a qualitative multiple case study of six European philanthropic foundations – a particular form of nonprofit organization –, to study how foundation boards address information processing barriers pertaining to the inherent subjectivity and heterogeneity of social impact performance. In doing so, the first chapter uncovers two mechanisms and four underlying information sharing practices that enable boards to incorporate social impact in effective board functioning and discusses the importance of these findings for the information processing view of boards and research on nonprofit governance. The second chapter also deploys a multiple case study, inquiring how community social capital shapes civic wealth creation strategies, drawing on qualitative data from six Spanish Community Foundations. By uncovering two mechanisms that support civic wealth creation, and by documenting the association of these mechanisms with existing levels of community social capital, the second chapter extends contributions to the civic wealth creation perspective, and to research at the nexus of impact, communities and entrepreneurship more broadly. The third chapter moves beyond the setting of philanthropic foundations, by asking how social funding organizations more broadly may balance competing accountability demands between efficiency and impact. This chapter adopts an organizational design perspective to accountability and proposes discernment – a form of moral judgement – as integral accountability mechanisms to harmonize potentially conflicting accountability demands, thereby contribution to research at the intersection of accountability, social funding organizations, and business ethics. The dissertation concludes by discussing its overarching contributions in terms of embedding insights from the philanthropic sector in broader theoretical debates, and in terms of the role of ‘soft’ governance mechanisms to further our understanding of effective social impact creation.

• Director: Dr Ariadna Dumitrescu, Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull
• Date of defense: June 20th, 2025

Abstract:
Leadership has been one of the most examined and debated topics in the social sciences, with significant implications for organizations and individuals. Despite decades of research, ongoing global events and societal changes bring new questions and challenges for leadership research. This dissertation identifies and addresses three such questions across three core chapters.
After a brief introductory chapter, the second chapter investigates the role of cultural context in the emergence of narcissistic leaders. We propose that individuals in China and the U.S. interpret narcissism differently, and as a result, narcissists are more likely to emerge as leaders in China than in the U.S. Four experiments tested our predictions. The third chapter examines when and why individuals support autocratic leadership. We argue that future anxiety increases support for autocratic leaders through a mediating mechanism of helplessness and that psychological reactance strengthens this effect. We tested our model using a survey of the Spanish population. The fourth chapter is a methodology guide, demonstrating how leadership and, more broadly, organizational researchers can gain additional insights by analyzing text data in experiments. We proposed a five-step approach and illustrated our approach with text responses from 2,454 aging leaders in an experiment.
Together, three chapters make both theoretical and methodological contributions. The second chapter refines implicit leadership theory by introducing trait interpretation as a novel mechanism through which cultural contexts shape leadership emergence. The third chapter suggests that implicit leadership theories are shaped not only by past experience and socialization, but also by anticipatory states such as future anxiety. The fourth chapter offers a methodological guide for integrating text analysis with experimental data, opening new avenues for leadership and organizational research.

• Director: Dr Matteo Prato, Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull
• Date of defense: July 8th, 2025

Abstract:
Despite advances toward gender equality in leadership and high-status professional roles, women continue to encounter persistent barriers in how they are perceived, evaluated, and rewarded. This dissertation investigates the social evaluation processes that contribute to these disparities, focusing on the cognitive mechanisms and biases shaping audience judgments of women’s ideas, visibility, and performance. Specifically, this dissertation comprises three chapters examining the role of audience evaluations in shaping gendered status outcomes. The first essay re-examines the double bind paradox in female leadership, exploring communicative strategies that may help women mitigate biased evaluations. The second essay explores attention and familiarity as structural mechanisms that women and other low-status individuals can leverage to attain high-status positions. The third essay investigates the protective versus punitive effect of status when individuals underperform, finding that audiences attribute women’s failures to a lack of ability and men’s failures to external circumstances. Overall, this dissertation advances our understanding of the social evaluation processes that underlie gender disparities in status attainment, maintenance, and loss.

• Director: Dr Núria Agell & Dr Marc Torrens, Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull
• Date of defense: July 28th, 2025

Abstract:
The increasing complexity of digital transformation in traditional industries calls for new and structured approaches to manage decision-making under uncertainty, especially in domains like automotive manufacturing where digitalization intersects with rigid legacy processes. This doctoral research investigates the strategic prioritization and evaluation of digital initiatives within SEAT S.A., an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), aiming at supporting its transition toward a more agile, value-driven digital portfolio management model. To enable effective prioritization, the thesis first develops a methodology that combines Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) with techniques such as TOPSIS and an IOWA-based aggregator to assess and visualize the alignment between the strategic importance and economic performance of digital initiatives. This produces a performance index and actionable rankings that highlight underperforming projects and therefore improves resource allocation. The research then establishes a consensual and standardized set of evaluation criteria for digital projects. Using the Delphi method and Hesitant Fuzzy Linguistic Term Sets (HFLTS), the study captures the perspectives of different stakeholders, encompassing business, product, and portfolio roles. This qualitative process yields a structured set of evaluation criteria —such as direct income, cost savings, strategic alignment, and customer satisfaction— ranked by both perceived importance and consensus level. These criteria become the foundation for a scalable and repeatable MCDA-based project evaluation framework, promoting transparency, consistency, and shared understanding across the organization. The final component of the thesis introduces a decision-aiding classification tool, leveraging the Weighted Ordered Weighted Averaging (WOWA) operator to assign digital initiatives to predefined ordinal classes. This approach accounts for both the relative importance of criteria and the behavioral patterns of decision-makers, enabling a transparent and reproducible evaluation process that supports mid- and long-term strategic planning. The proposed framework not only improves the coherence and traceability of digital project evaluations but also fosters consensus among decision-makers and ensures that high-impact, strategically relevant projects receive the proper attention. Collectively, the thesis makes multiple contributions to both academia and industry. It demonstrates how MCDA, fuzzy logic, and behavioral decision theory can be harmonized to enhance digital portfolio management in complex corporate settings. Ultimately, this work contributes a comprehensive, stakeholder-inclusive framework for digital portfolio management that bridges the gap between strategic intent and operational execution—supporting more agile, transparent, and value-driven decision-making in traditional industries.

• Director: Dr. Salvador del Rey Guanter y Dra. Anna Ginès i Fabrellas - Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull y Dr. Ricard Martínez Martínez – Universitat de València.
• Date of defense: September 16th, 2024

Abstract:
This thesis aims to analyze the safeguards provided by the current data protection legal framework to address the risks that arise from the development and deployment of automated decision-making systems in the workplace. It will combine legal analysis, doctrinal analysis, and the study of artificial intelligence techniques to determine how well this framework safeguards workers’ fundamental right to data protection.