ODE TO THE SEA: WORKPLACE ORGANIZATIONS AND NORMS OF COOPERATION

Uri Gneezy, Andreas Leibbrandt and John List

No 59-13, Monash Economics Working Papers from Monash University, Department of Economics

Abstract: The functioning and well-being of any society and organization critically hinges on norms of cooperation that regulate social activities. Empirical evidence on how such norms emerge and in which environments they thrive remain a clear void in the literature. To provide an initial set of insights, we overlay a set of field experiments on a natural setting. Our approach is to compare behavior in Brazilian fishermen societies that differ only along one major dimension: the workplace organization. In one society (located by the sea) fishermen are forced to work in groups whereas in the adjacent society (located on a lake) fishing is inherently an individual activity. We report sharp evidence that the sea fishermen trust and cooperate more and have greater ability to coordinate group actions than their lake fishermen counterparts. These findings are consistent with the argument that people internalize social norms that emerge from specific needs and support the idea that socio-ecological factors play a decisive role in the proliferation of pro-social behaviors.

Keywords: social norm; pro-sociality; field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D03 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2013-07
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Related works:
Journal Article: Ode to the Sea: Workplace Organizations and Norms of Cooperation (2016)
Working Paper: Ode to the Sea: Workplace organizations and norms of cooperation (2014)
Working Paper: Ode to the sea: Workplace Organizations and Norms of Cooperation (2014)
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