OB Research Seminar - John Antonakis, HEC Lausanne

Professor Antonakis will provide an overview of charisma and why it should be re-defined from a signaling perspective. He will show why questionnaire measures should never be used to gauge charisma as an independent variable, and why charisma should be experimentally manipulated in the context of consequential experiments or measured via objectively observed behavior. He will provide brief evidence showing that charisma can help increase the persuasiveness of a message, motivate workers, coordinate player actions in public good settings, or make individuals undertake costly actions for the public good. However, why individuals are attuned to charisma signals is unclear. He will show that charisma is a difficult to emulate skill that depends strongly on cognitive ability--hence it is a costly signal.