Teamwork revisited: social preferences and knowledge acquisition in the field

Frauke Bieberstein (), Jonas Gehrlein () and Anna Güntner ()
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Frauke Bieberstein: University of Bern
Jonas Gehrlein: University of Bern
Anna Güntner: University of Bern

Journal of Business Economics, 2020, vol. 90, issue 4, No 4, 614 pages

Abstract: Abstract Combining a lab-in-the-field experiment with field data, we study the effect of social preferences on performance in a modified teamwork setting, where the production of a public good serves as basis for incentivized individual performance, but is not a goal in itself. Examples of such modified team settings are knowledge sharing, peer coaching, and cooperative learning—all highly relevant topics for organizations today. As opposed to a standard public good setting, we find that conditional cooperators and their team partners are not more successful in producing the target output. In contrast, selfish individuals tend to perform better individually, without generating negative externalities for their team partners, as measured by the incentivized individual performance.

Keywords: Teamwork; Social preferences; Knowledge sharing; Knowledge building; Cooperative learning; Lab-in-the-field experiment; D90; M12; M21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11573-020-00966-2

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