Publication
Singh, Jasjit, Teng, Nina and Netessine, Serguei. (2019). Philanthropic Campaigns and Customer Behavior: Field Experiments on an Online Taxi Booking Platform. Management Science, 65(2): 913–932. (Link)
Nominated for Best Paper Award, Strategic Management Society 2016 Annual Meeting
Nominated for Carolyn Dexter Award, Academy of Management 2016 Annual Meeting
Firms commonly undertake philanthropic campaigns as a means of attracting and retaining customers. Such campaigns often take the form of charity-linked promotions, whereby a firm donates a specific amount to a charitable cause when a customer takes up the promotion through a related purchase. We carried out three field experiments to study such promotions in the context of an online taxi-booking platform. Customers were randomly assigned to different treatment groups, which received either a charity-linked or a discount-based promotion from a range of monetary amounts. Take-up rates for charity-linked promotions were not only much smaller than for discount-based promotions but also less sensitive to the exact amount involved, consistent with a view that the decision to take up a charity-linked promotion was driven in part by a “warm glow” from mere association with giving. We also find a selection effect in promotion take-up: charity-linked promotions were disproportionately taken up by people who had already been more active customers. Although a promotion take-up does seem to represent new demand rather than mere substitution of a booking that would have occurred anyway, longitudinal data analysis reveals little evidence of a lasting treatment effect on long-term demand beyond the promotion period for either kind of promotion. Given the high cost relative to benefit for the promotional bookings themselves, this finding raises concerns regarding the prevalent practice of firms devoting significant funds for short-term promotions without rigorously examining their exact impact.
Dissertation Papers
Teng, Nina, Nataliya Langburd Wright, and Aleksandra (Olenka) Kacperczyk. (2025). Do Disruptive Startups Attract Better Talent? Evidence from a Hiring Field Experiment in India (Link)
We examine how a startup's strategic positioning—specifically, whether it communicates a disruptive or collaborative stance toward incumbents—affects its ability to attract talent. Although prior research has examined how this positioning influences investors, its impact on potential employees remains less clear. We conduct a field experiment with an early-stage climate technology startup in India, randomly assigning job seekers to a disruptive or collaborative positioning condition. By examining job applications and salary expectations from software engineers, we assess the direct effects of strategic positioning and the underlying mechanisms driving candidates' behaviors. Our results show that disruptive positioning reduces application rates by 6 percentage points. Applicants who do apply demand 5% higher cash compensation. This compensation premium occurs largely because applicants who are fully employed explore fewer job opportunities and are likely to seek compensation for having to leave their stable, full-time employment. These findings contribute to the emerging literature on startup talent acquisition by demonstrating how strategic communication choices significantly influence human capital attraction, a critical yet understudied dimension of new venture success.
Teng, Nina. (2025). Symbolic Framing of Startup Equity Compensation: Evidence from a Hiring Field Experiment in India
Startups often promise future wealth and ownership through equity compensation—yet for many early employees, these offers yield little financial return. This raises a fundamental question: how do symbolic framings of compensation shape candidate behavior under conditions of uncertainty? Embedding a field experiment in the live recruitment cycle of an early-stage climate technology startup in India, I randomly varied how equity offers were presented to job applicants: either as a chance to co-own the company, as a chance to invest in the company, or in neutral legal terms as simply receiving employee stock options. I find that symbolic framing systematically influences who applies, what compensation they seek, and how they interpret their prospective role. These findings show that equity can act as a symbolic sorting mechanism—shaping who engages with an opportunity, how they negotiate terms, and how they imagine their relationship to the organization. The study contributes to research on startup hiring, symbolic management, and the meaning of compensation, demonstrating how organizations foster commitment and identity through narrative cues, even when material outcomes remain uncertain.
Teng, Nina. (2025). Embedded Hiring Field Experiments in Strategy: A Two-Stage, Closed Recruitment Method for Research and Practice
Understanding how organizations attract, select, and hire talent is central to strategy research. Yet much empirical work in this area faces challenges of causal identification and external validity. Traditional hiring experiments and reverse audit studies often rely on open job postings and self-selected applicant pools, limiting internal validity due to selection bias and hindering practical relevance. To address these challenges, I propose a novel methodological approach: a two-stage, closed recruitment method for embedded hiring field experiments. This design enables clean causal identification in real-world hiring settings by combining a targeted candidate search with post-interest randomization. I illustrate the method using a field experiment conducted with an early-stage startup hiring its first software engineer. This approach advances the toolkit for researchers seeking to embed experiments into organizational practices, enhancing both research rigor and managerial relevance.