Leadership and Group Size: An Experiment

Mana Komai and Philip Grossman ()
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Philip Grossman: Department of Economics, St. Cloud State University

No 2008-06 Classification-C92, H41, Working Papers from Saint Cloud State University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Recent theoretical and experimental work suggests that leading by example can induce full cooperation in collective actions. Our experimental study suggests that leading by example loses its effectiveness in large groups. Our interpretation is that the discrepancy between the leaders’ incentives and those of an individual follower increases with group size. On one hand, leaders become more pivotal in larger groups and thus eager to participate. On the other hand, followers become more marginal in larger groups and thus more eager to free ride. Under these circumstances, leading by example becomes too weak to overcome the strong free riding problem.

Keywords: Leading by example; Free-riding; Cooperation; Group size (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-exp and nep-soc
Date: 2008-03
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:scs:wpaper:0806

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