Preference Communication and leadership in group decision-making

Seda Ertac and Mehmet Gurdal

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), 2019, vol. 80, issue C, 130-140

Abstract: We report results from a laboratory experiment that explores the effects of preference communication and leader selection mechanisms in group decision-making. In a setting where all members of a group get the same payoff based on the leader's decision of how much risk to take, we study (1) how group members communicate their preferences to the leader, (2) whether and how the leader incorporates the communicated preferences into his/her decision. We vary the leader selection mechanism as a treatment variable and consider cases where the leader is exogenously appointed or voluntarily self-selects into the position. We find that communicated preferences have a significant effect on actual group decisions, and that leaders’ compromise between their own preferences and the preferences of others. The data also reveal that individual characteristics matter in both what kind of suggestions are communicated to the leader, and whether leaders are likely to stick to their own preferences or compromise when making group decisions: Women and individuals who are more trusting of others are more likely to manipulate their own preferences when communicating them and more likely to compromise in response to others’ preferences as leaders.

Keywords: Group decision-making; Risk; Leadership; Delegation; Advice; Communication; Experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C92 D81 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221480431930117X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Preference Communication and Leadership in Group Decision-Making (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceco:v:80:y:2019:i:c:p:130-140

DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2019.03.004

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) is currently edited by Pablo Brañas Garza

More articles in Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().