Measuring "Group Cohesion" to Reveal the Power of Social Relationships in Team Production

Simon Gaechter, Chris Starmer and Fabio Tufano
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Simon Gächter

No 9936, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We introduce “group cohesion” to study the economic relevance of social relationships in team production. We operationalize measurement of group cohesion, adapting the “oneness scale” from psychology. A series of experiments, including a pre-registered replication, reveals strong positive associations between group cohesion and performance assessed in weak-link coordination games, with high-cohesion groups being very likely to achieve superior equilibria. In exploratory analysis, we identify beliefs rather than social preferences as the primary mechanism through which factors proxied by group cohesion influence group performance. Our evidence provides proof-of-concept for group cohesion as a useful tool for economic research and practice.

Keywords: team work; group cohesion; social relationships; coordination; weak link games; experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-gth, nep-hrm and nep-soc
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Working Paper: Measuring “group cohesion” to reveal the power of social relationships in team production (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9936

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