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Cooperation in Organization through Self-Commitment Actions

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Abstract

This paper studies how an organization might promote cooperation between its members when individual contributions to the organization's output are imperfectly observable. It considers an overlapping-generation game in which members with conflicting interests expend effort in pursuing outside tasks that are perfectly observable and privately beneficial in addition to the effort devoted to increasing the organization's output. We show that both the organization's expected output and members' well-being increase when the reward and punishment mechanism links the two types of effort. In the resulting equilibrium, privately beneficial efforts are at an inefficient level in order to signal members' willingness to cooperate. After extending the game to multiple generations, we apply it to the optimal tasks assignment along career paths in an organization.

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  • Francesco Lancia & Alessia Russo, 2016. "Cooperation in Organization through Self-Commitment Actions," Vienna Economics Papers vie1605, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:vie:viennp:vie1605
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    Cited by:

    1. Bård Harstad & Francesco Lancia & Alessia Russo, 2019. "Compliance Technology and Self-enforcing Agreements," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 1-29.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • F62 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Macroeconomic Impacts
    • M54 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Labor Management

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