Group Identity and Leading-by-Example

Michalis Drouvelis and Daniele Nosenzo

No 2012-05, Discussion Papers from The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham

Abstract: We study the interplay between leading-by-example and group identity in a public goods game experiment. A common identity between the leader and her followers is beneficial for cooperation: average contributions are more than 30% higher than in a treatment where no identity was induced. In two further treatments we study the effects of heterogeneous identities. We find no effect on cooperation when only part of the followers share the leader’s identity, or when followers share a common identity that differs from that of the leader. We conclude that group identity is an effective but fragile instrument to promote cooperation.

Keywords: leading-by-example; leadership; public goods; voluntary contributions; cooperation; identity; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cdm, nep-evo, nep-exp and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cedex/documents/paper ... on-paper-2012-05.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Group identity and leading-by-example (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:not:notcdx:2012-05

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham School of Economics University of Nottingham University Park Nottingham NG7 2RD. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jose V Guinot Saporta ().