Teams promise but do not deliver
Abstract
Individuals and two-person teams play a hidden-action trust game with pre-play communication. We replicate previous results for individuals that non-binding promises increase cooperation rates, but this does not extend to teams. While teams promise to cooperate at the same rate as individuals, they consistently renege on those promises. Additional treatments begin to explore the basis for team behavior. We rule out explanations hypothesizing that concern for partner's payoff drives team outcomes, as absent within-team communication, promise fulfillment rates increase compared to individuals. Rather, the results are consistent with the idea that communication between teammates provides support for self-serving behavior.
Additional Information
© 2019 Elsevier Inc. Received 29 January 2018, Available online 2 August 2019. Funding for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation, SES-1630288. We have benefited from discussions with Katherine Baldiga Coffman, Lucas Coffman, Paul J. Healy, and audience members at the 2016 North American ESA meeting. We thank Jinsoo Bae, Liam Bailey, Gus Bradley, Bethany Cady, Anish Ravipati, Eric Spurlino and Rachel Williams for their research assistance. An earlier version of this paper was circulated under the title "Team vs. Individual Behavior with Non-Binding Commitments." Opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations offered here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.Attached Files
Submitted - SSRN-id2998300.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 104589
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20200727-102627393
- NSF
- SES-1630288
- Created
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2020-07-28Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2023-06-01Created from EPrint's last_modified field