Hardwired to Monitor: An Empirical Investigation of Agency-Type Social Contracts in Business Organizations

David M. Wasieleski ()
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David M. Wasieleski: Duquesne University

A chapter in Evolutionary Psychology in the Business Sciences, 2011, pp 191-223 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This chapter, grounded in empirical analysis, supports the position adopted by evolutionary psychologists that the human brain is hardwired to solve adaptive problems involving social exchange relationships. First, the evolutionary psychology hypothesis regarding social exchange is presented and explained in terms of its relevance to business. It is argued that the presence of cheater-detection/social-contract neural algorithms is ubiquitous among all members of a human population regardless of formal business training. In Study 1, I test the hypothesis on a sample of 300 business practitioners and students. Additionally, this study examines whether human brain circuits are structured to recognize agency-type arrangements in firms. In a second experiment, the effect of organizational work experience was tested to discover whether there exist moderating factors on the activation of cheater-detection circuits in a business context. It is posited that although corporate agents’ minds are biologically evolved to identify violators in social contract situations, the neural circuits responsible for detecting these breaches are influenced by organizational components including, organizational culture, that affect individuals’ perceptions of the terms of the exchange. Implications for business practitioners and researchers are offered.

Keywords: Agency relationships; Business ethics; Cheating; Evolutionary psychology; Monitoring; Perception; Social contracts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-540-92784-6_8

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-92784-6_8

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