scholarly journals Uncertainty‐driven cooperation

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 1023-1058
Author(s):  
Doruk Cetemen ◽  
Ilwoo Hwang ◽  
Ayça Kaya
Keyword(s):  
Performance Measures ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Team Production ◽  
Ratchet Effect ◽  
Current Effort ◽  
Joint Performance ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Effort Level

We consider dynamic team production in the presence of uncertainty. Team members receive interim feedback that depends on both their current effort level and the project's uncertain prospects. In this environment, each member can encourage the others by making them more optimistic about the project's prospects. We study the extent to which this incentive counters the usual free‐riding incentive. Restricting the agents' access to feedback can increase their equilibrium effort levels by mitigating the ratchet effect. In this case, using joint performance measures can be beneficial even when individual measures are available.

scholarly journals Nonbinding Goals in Teams: A Real Effort Coordination Experiment

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 1026-1044
Author(s):  
James Fan ◽  
Joaquín Gómez-Miñambres
Keyword(s):  
Energy Use ◽  
Weak Link ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Individual Performance ◽  
Problem Definition ◽  
Reference Points ◽  
Team Production ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Managerial Implications ◽  
The Impact

Problem definition: We investigate the impact of nonbinding (wage-irrelevant) goals, set by a manager, on a team of workers with “weak-link” production technology. Can nonbinding goals improve team production when team members face production complementarity? Academic/practical relevance: Nonbinding goals are easy to implement and ubiquitous in practice. These goals have been shown to improve individual performance, but it remains to be seen if such goals are effective in team production when there is production complementarity among workers. Methodology: We first develop a theoretical model where goals act as reference points for workers’ intrinsic motivation to complete the task. We then test our hypotheses in a controlled, human-subjects experiment. In our experiment, participants act as managers or workers, and we examine the impact of nonbinding goals on team outcomes. Results: Consistent with our model, we find evidence that team production does increase when managers are able to set goals. This effect is strongest when goals are challenging but attainable for weak-link workers. However, we also find evidence that many managers assign goals that are too challenging for weak-link workers, resulting in suboptimal team production, lower profits, and higher wasted performance (performance above the weak-link level). Managerial implications: Our analysis indicates that goals are effective motivators in teams, but some managers may have difficulty overcoming personal biases when setting goals. The task of setting team goals is more complex than setting individual goals, and many managers can benefit from training on how to set good goals for the team. Moreover, our finding that suboptimal goals also increase wasted performance suggests that improving goal-setting strategies is especially important in production settings where overperformance is costly for the firm (scrap, energy use, inventory costs, lower prices as a result of oversupply, etc.).

scholarly journals The Impact of Team Identity and Gender on Free-Riding Responses to Fear and Cooperation Sustainability

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 8175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Gomez-Ruiz ◽  
María J. Sánchez-Expósito
Keyword(s):  
Interaction Effect ◽  
Risk Preferences ◽  
Social Dilemma ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Team Identity ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Free Ride ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Impact

This study explores the interaction effect of team identity and gender on free-riding responses to fear and cooperation sustainability in a social dilemma situation. Based on differences in inequity aversion, risk preferences, and reaction to competition between men and women, we predict that team identity reduces free-riding behaviors among men when they feel fear to be exploited by others teammates that free-ride, but that it does not affect women in this way. Consequently, we also predict that the effect of team identity on cooperation sustainability differs between the two genders. We conducted an experiment in which dominant incentives to free-ride were held constant over 30 periods and where agents had to make a decision between cooperation and free-riding in each period. After each decision, agents received teammates’ contribution and earnings, which facilitates that agents identify whether their team members free-ride. Our findings show no effect for team identity on free-riding response to fear among women. However, team identity affects free-riding response to fear among men, which positively impacts cooperation sustainability.

An Analytical Model of Collaboration Between Engineers Working on Team and on Individual Projects

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shun Takai
Keyword(s):  
Performance Evaluation ◽  
Curriculum Development ◽  
Analytical Model ◽  
Team Member ◽  
System Development ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Team Projects ◽  
Team Project ◽  
Functional Teams

Collaboration of engineers with diverse technical background such as those found in cross-functional teams has been addressed as a key for successful system development. Similarly, the benefit of team-based-project class is increasingly emphasized in curriculum development. In a team project, however, there is always a temptation for a team member to free-ride on other team members’ efforts (i.e., receive the same credit without contributing to the project). This paper presents an analytical model in which two engineers work on a team project, as well as individually on separate projects. The engineers receive the same performance evaluation on their team project (whether they actually contribute to the project or not), but independent evaluations on their individual projects. This paper uses the model to identify conditions that discourage free-riding and encourage collaboration between two engineers. The results of the analysis and implications to team projects in industry and in curriculum are discussed.

Education, Experience, and Audit Effort

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 91-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Limei Che ◽  
John Christian Langli ◽  
Tobias Svanström
Keyword(s):  
Professional Education ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
Audit Fees ◽  
Bachelor's Degree ◽  
Professional Experience ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Effort Level ◽  
Education Experience ◽  
Partner Characteristics ◽  
Audit Reports

SUMMARY This paper examines how audit effort, measured by the estimated number of audit hours used to perform the clients' audits, is associated with engagement partners' formal education, continuing professional education (CPE), and professional experience. Although the literature provides considerable evidence for the determinants of audit fees, our understanding of how audit effort is related to these partner characteristics is limited. The aim of this paper is to shed light on partner-specific factors that may influence how much audit effort they and their team members exert. Using a sample of 1,738 unique partners and 178,770 client-year observations, we find evidence that auditors with a master's degree exert more effort than those with a bachelor's degree. We also find a positive relation between audit effort and CPE. The relation between audit effort and professional experience is nonlinear: the least experienced auditors put in the least effort, moderately experienced auditors exert the most effort, while the effort level of the most experienced auditors is in between. We also document that the accuracy of going concern modified audit reports is higher for more knowledgeable auditors.

scholarly journals Decoding team and individual impact in science and invention

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (28) ◽  
pp. 13885-13890 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Ahmadpoor ◽  
Benjamin F. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Citation Impact ◽  
Team Production ◽  
National Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Substantial Impact ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Out Of Sample ◽  
Harmonic Average ◽  
Wide Scale ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Academy Of Sciences

Scientists and inventors increasingly work in teams, raising fundamental questions about the nature of team production and making individual assessment increasingly difficult. Here we present a method for describing individual and team citation impact that both is computationally feasible and can be applied in standard, wide-scale databases. We track individuals across collaboration networks to define an individual citation index and examine outcomes when each individual works alone or in teams. Studying 24 million research articles and 3.9 million US patents, we find a substantial impact advantage of teamwork over solo work. However, this advantage declines as differences between the team members’ individual citation indices grow. Team impact is predicted more by the lower-citation rather than the higher-citation team members, typically centering near the harmonic average of the individual citation indices. Consistent with this finding, teams tend to assemble among individuals with similar citation impact in all fields of science and patenting. In assessing individuals, our index, which accounts for each coauthor, is shown to have substantial advantages over existing measures. First, it more accurately predicts out-of-sample paper and patent outcomes. Second, it more accurately characterizes which scholars are elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Overall, the methodology uncovers universal regularities that inform team organization while also providing a tool for individual evaluation in the team production era.

scholarly journals Performance monitoring by managerial teams

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 92-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Jinghong Liang ◽  
Madhav Rajan ◽  
Korok Ray
Keyword(s):  
Performance Measures ◽  
Organizational Design ◽  
Performance Monitoring ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Normal Density ◽  
Uncertain Information ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Monitoring Effort ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Endogenous Process

Purpose This paper aims to explore the design of management teams when the critical task facing individual managers is monitoring the performance of worker teams and producing performance measures under uncertain information environments. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a multi-agent LEN framework – linear contract, exponential utility and normal density – to model the incentive provision and organizational design. Findings The main lesson is that the use of performance measures under uncertainty is greatly affected by the potential for free-riding in the very monitoring activities which generate the measures to begin with. Accordingly, the value of having a management team, that is the incremental benefit of having a second manager, depends on the monitoring technology. Of particular importance are the potential free-riding in monitoring effort among multiple managers and synergies gained from having more than one manager, such as correlation among the performance measures produced or improvement due to splitting workers pool into separate groups for each manager to monitor separately. Originality/value The paper pushes this line of research further by explicitly modeling the endogenous process of signal generation within a rich economic environment. In this environment, number of workers being evaluated and number of managers who produce the signals are both endogenous. Furthermore, both workers and managers are subject to moral hazard problem. In particular, the managers suffer from potential free-riding problems but may benefit from synergistic forces due to team monitoring.

The competition between B2C platform and third-party seller considering sales effort

Kybernetes ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (7) ◽  
pp. 1084-1108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaiying Cao ◽  
Ping He
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Effort Level ◽  
The Third ◽  
Optimal Decisions ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
The Third Party ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose By studying the competition between a B2C platform and a third-party seller, the purpose of this paper is to analyze and compare their optimal decisions and profits between cases with and without sales effort of the platform or third-party seller. Design/methodology/approach This paper studies the competition between a B2C platform and a third-party seller. The platform sells a product directly, and allows the third-party seller to sell a competing product on the platform. Based on whether the platform or the third-party seller makes sales effort, there are four scenarios. The paper analyzes the optimal decisions and profits of platform and third-party seller under each scenario, respectively. Findings The transaction fee has a negative effect on third-party seller’s sales effort level. What is more, the platform can take a free riding from the third-party seller’s sales effort, but the platform’s sales effort has a negative effect on the profit of third-party seller. Practical implications These results provide managerial insights for the platform and the third-party seller to make decisions. Originality/value This paper is among the first papers to study the competition between B2C platform and third-party seller.

Types of Leadership and Performance Norms of School Athletic Teams

1992 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 803-806 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myung-Soo Kim
Keyword(s):  
Performance Measures ◽  
Goal Achievement ◽  
Achievement Orientation ◽  
Group Relations ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Group Orientation ◽  
Athletic Teams ◽  
Group Members ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Team Captains

This study assessed whether the four types of leadership by team captains, based on leaders' goal achievement orientation (P-function) and group-relations orientation (M-function) designated by Misumi affected performance norms, i.e., attitudes shared among group members about how high a level of performance the group should achieve, Banzai's 1989 leadership scale, Misumi's 1985 and Patchen's 1966 performance measures (ratings by team members) were modified for a sports setting and completed by 1972 athletes who belonged to 114 school athletic teams. Analysis showed that the performance norms were highest under leaders of both goal achievement and group orientation (high on both P- and M-function), followed by Pm and pM types (high in only one of two functions) and pm type (low on both orientations). The present results indicate that types of leadership affect performance norms of school athletic teams.

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