Individual learning and team functioning

Marco Novarese

Experimental from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper aims at studying the effects of learning - seen as a possible source of individual heterogeneity - on team functioning, in an experimental game requiring cooperation and coordination. It contributes to the new emergent cognitive approach to Economics. The empirical analysis starts from some general hypothesis but has mainly a descriptive purpose. Results allow confirming previous findings: individuals tend to developed high-routinized paths of behaviour, extending the strategies learned in the past, to the new situations faced. Learning processes, yet, are not based on the mechanical repetition of the same choices (participants to this experiment proved, for example, in fact, to be able to imitate and replicate the strategies of their previous partners). A significant heterogeneity in the behaviour, related to personal traits and to the training treatment emerged. The second part of the game allows to understand how significantly such individual differences affect team performance in the same task. Best teams require a mix of similarity and heterogeneity among members.

Keywords: heterogeneity; learning; experimental economics; cognitive economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 14 pages
Date: 2004-09-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-evo
Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 14
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/exp/papers/0409/0409001.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:wpa:wuwpex:0409001

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Experimental from University Library of Munich, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by EconWPA ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).