The effect of production technology on trust and reciprocity in principal-agent relationships with team production

B-Tier
Journal: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Year: 2017
Volume: 137
Issue: C
Pages: 324-338

Authors (4)

Cobo-Reyes, Ramón (not in RePEc) Lacomba, Juan A. (not in RePEc) Lagos, Francisco (Universidad de Granada) Levin, Dan (Ohio State University)

Score contribution per author:

0.503 = (α=2.01 / 4 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We introduce differently sized teams, rather than a single worker, and three production technologies to an otherwise standard gift-exchange environment to study experimentally whether, and to what extent, ‘trust and reciprocity’ is affected. Moving to a team of workers introduces new motivations, such as free riding and coordination burden, that are likely to intensify with team size and the technology used by the firm. We find that the positive relationship between wages and effort, although affected, still holds; workers reduce their efforts when coordination for efficiency is more difficult using a particular production technology. Results also suggest that for any given technology, firms react to their relevant outcome (profitability) and not just to workers’ efforts.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:jeborg:v:137:y:2017:i:c:p:324-338
Journal Field
Theory
Author Count
4
Added to Database
2026-01-25