Naturally occurring enhancements to competition for talent in teams​

Abhijit Ramalingam, Brock Stoddard and James Walker

No GRU_2021_021, GRU Working Paper Series from City University of Hong Kong, Department of Economics and Finance, Global Research Unit

Abstract: In a laboratory setting, we study team production of group-level public goods, where two teams compete for the resources of a common-member who can benefit from and provide effort in both teams. Intrinsically, the common-member faces divided loyalties. We examine such competition in settings in which the common-member has productive abilities equal to that of the other team members and in which he/she has greater relative potential. In the homogeneous setting, we find evidence that competition increases when the common-member must choose team membership across decision rounds, instead of sharing membership within a round. In the heterogeneous setting, we find the largest increase in team effort when the common-member has sufficient resources to match that of team members in both teams. When the common-member’s productivity increases, so his/her capabilities are equivalent to the setting where resources increase, team performance is not equally increased. Further treatments explore possible explanations for these latter findings.

Keywords: public goods; experiment; divided loyalties; competition; group choice; heterogeneity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C91 C92 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30
Date: 2021-05-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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