Samuel Skowronek

Samuel Skowronek
  • Doctoral Candidate

Contact Information

  • office Address:

    527.6 Jon M. Huntsman Hall
    3730 Walnut Street
    Philadelphia, PA 19104

Research Interests: ethical decision making, emotions, social norms, behavioral decision research

Links: CV

Overview

Sam Skowronek is a fifth-year doctoral student in the Decision-Processes Group at Wharton. Prior to starting his doctoral work, he worked as a Research Fellow at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government and as a Research Associate at KPMG’s Institute for Consumer Research at the Georgetown University McDonough School of Business. Sam graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University in 2013 with a BA in Economics.

Sam’s research is focused on ethical decision making. He has conducted research on how shame and embarrassment shape ethical norms in organizations, and he has studied how domain expertise influences the use of deception.

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Research

  • Sam Skowronek and Alex Rees-Jones (2018), An experimental investigation of preference misrepresentation in the residency match, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

    Abstract: The development and deployment of matching procedures that incentivize truthful preference reporting is considered one of the major successes of market design research. In this study, we test the degree to which these procedures succeed in eliminating preference misrepresentation. We administered an online experiment to 1,714 medical students immediately after their participation in the medical residency match—a leading field application of strategy-proof market design. When placed in an analogous, incentivized matching task, we find that 23% of participants misrepresent their preferences. We explore the factors that predict preference misrepresentation, including cognitive ability, strategic positioning, overconfidence, expectations, advice, and trust. We discuss the implications of this behavior for the design of allocation mechanisms and the social welfare in markets that use them.

Awards and Honors

  • Society of Business Ethics Founders’ Award, 2021
  • Best Student Paper Award, Academy of Management Conference- Conflict Management Division, 2021
  • Mack Institute for Innovation Management Research Grant, 2020
  • Baker Retail Center Research Award, 2020
  • Winkelman Fellowship, 2018
  • Emotions and Organizations Research Grant by the Katz Fund for Research on Leadership and Emotional Intelligence, 2018
  • Marjorie Weiler Prize for Excellence in Writing, 2017
  • Wharton Risk Center Russell Ackoff Doctoral Fellowship Award, 2017-2020
  • Phi Beta Kappa Society, 2013

Activity

Latest Research

Sam Skowronek and Alex Rees-Jones (2018), An experimental investigation of preference misrepresentation in the residency match, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
All Research