Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

6-2020

Abstract

We replicate and extend empirical evidence that has been interpreted as an indication of coaches’ racial bias in the National Basketball Association (NBA) by Schroffel and Magee (2012) and Zhang (2017; 2019). After replicating the published results, we extend them by modeling coaches’ decisions of “resting the starters,” a common tactical decision based on players’ quality and not on their race, thus exploring whether this tactic may provide an alternative explanation for associations that might thus far have been taken to indicate racial bias. Our results show that, after empirically accounting for “resting the starters,” the magnitude of associations that have been taken to indicate coaches’ racial bias becomes small and not statistically distinguishable from zero. We discuss the implications of these findings on literatures related to racial integration in organizations, and on the sociology of sports and race.

Keywords

Racial bias, coaches, discrimination, racial integration, National Basketball Association, NBA, basketball

Discipline

Race and Ethnicity | Sports Management | Strategic Management Policy

Research Areas

Strategy and Organisation

Publication

Academy of Management Discoveries

Volume

6

Issue

2

First Page

206

Last Page

234

ISSN

2168-1007

Identifier

10.5465/amd.2018.0091

Publisher

Academy of Management

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.5465/amd.2018.0091

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