Competitive Crowding and Risk Taking in a Tournament: Evidence from NASCAR Racing
- 22 June 2007
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Administrative Science Quarterly
- Vol. 52 (2), 208-247
- https://doi.org/10.2189/asqu.52.2.208
Abstract
This article uses National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) races to examine how competitive crowding affects the risk-taking conduct of actors in a tournament. We develop three claims: (1) crowding from below, which measures the number of competitors capable of surpassing a given actor in a tournament-based contest, predisposes that actor to take risks; (2) as a determinant of risky conduct, crowding from below has a stronger influence than crowding from above, which captures the opportunity to advance in rank; and (3) the effect of crowding from below is strongest after the rank ordering of the actors in a tournament becomes relatively stable, which focuses contestants' attention on proximately ranked competitors. Using panel data on NASCAR's Winston Cup Series from 1990 through 2003, we model the probability that a driver crashes his car in a race. Findings show that drivers crash their vehicles with greater frequency when their positions are increasingly at risk of displacement by their nearby, lower-ranked counterparts; the effect of crowding from below exceeds that of crowding from above; and the effect of crowding by lower-ranked contestants is greatest when there is relatively little race-to-race change in the rank ordering of drivers.Keywords
This publication has 62 references indexed in Scilit:
- Relative size and firm growth in the global computer industryIndustrial and Corporate Change, 2005
- Banking Competition, Risk and Regulation*The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 2004
- The evolution of inertiaIndustrial and Corporate Change, 2004
- The Red Queen in organizational creation and developmentIndustrial and Corporate Change, 2002
- An Ecological Theory of Spatial Evolution: Local Density Dependence in Tokyo Banking, 1894-1936Social Forces, 2002
- Corporate TournamentsJournal of Labor Economics, 2001
- Dynamics of Niche Width and Resource PartitioningAmerican Journal of Sociology, 2001
- Avenues of Attainment: Occupational Demography and Organizational Careers in the California Civil ServiceAmerican Journal of Sociology, 2000
- Testing the Theory of Tournaments: An Empirical Analysis of Broiler ProductionJournal of Labor Economics, 1994
- Psychology and Economics: Perspectives on Risk, Cooperation, and the MarketplaceAnnual Review of Psychology, 1994