Why Managers Stifle Good Ideas.

This article examines the results of a study that looked into why managers may be reluctant to support employees’ creative ideas, focusing on the status consequences managers face when endorsing subordinates’ proposals. Across multiple experiments, the study found that when ideas succeed, employees gain more status than their managers, while failed ideas lead to greater status losses for managers, making endorsement risky regardless of outcome. These perceived status dynamics help explain managerial resistance to innovation and suggest that practices such as blind idea evaluation could reduce bias and encourage the advancement of promising ideas.