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Leadership in Teams: Signaling or Reciprocating ?

Author

Listed:
  • Claude Meidinger

    (TEAM - Théories et Applications en Microéconomie et Macroéconomie - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Marie Claire Villeval

    (GATE - Groupe d'analyse et de théorie économique - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - ENS LSH - Ecole Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

How does leadership work in teams? In this paper, leadership is grounded on both the possession of a private information by the leader and by her ability to communicate credibly with followers in order to induce them to expand high efforts. This paper reports an experiment testing the efficiency of two costly communication devices introduced by Hermalin (1998): leading-by-example and leading-by-sacrifice. In leading-by-example, the leader's effort is observable by the follower. Experimental evidence shows that leadership works more through reciprocity than through signaling. In leading-by-sacrifice, the leader can give up a part of her payoff. Experimental evidence indicates that this sacrifice works as a truthful signaling device when it is lost for the follower but not when it is transferred to him.

Suggested Citation

  • Claude Meidinger & Marie Claire Villeval, 2002. "Leadership in Teams: Signaling or Reciprocating ?," Post-Print halshs-00178474, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00178474
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00178474
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    References listed on IDEAS

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