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The Breakdown of Morale

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  • Nick Vikander

    (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Abstract

This paper studies how morale in teams can break down. It interprets high morale as team members working together productively, either because of a sense of fairness or because of implicit incentives from repeated interactions. Team members learn that lay-offs will occur at a fixed future date, which will eventually cause morale to break down. The paper shows that the breakdown of morale can vary in size and the equilibrium outcomes can be Pareto ranked. A firm's measures to encourage cooperation may actually hurt morale, by convincing opportunistic team members to imitate and later take advantage of cooperative colleagues.

Suggested Citation

  • Nick Vikander, 2009. "The Breakdown of Morale," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 09-027/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20090027
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    File URL: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/09027.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    morale; teams; cooperation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M50 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - General
    • M54 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Labor Management
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure

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