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Role selection and team performance

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  • David J. Cooper
  • Matthias Sutter

Abstract

Team success relies on assigning team members to the right tasks. We use controlled experiments to study how roles are assigned within teams and how this affects team performance. Subjects play the takeover game in pairs consisting of a buyer and a seller. Understanding optimal play is very demanding for buyers and trivial for sellers. Teams perform better when roles are assigned endogenously or teammates are allowed to chat about their decisions, but the interaction effect between endogenous role assignment and chat unexpectedly worsens team performance. We argue that ego depletion provides a likely explanation for this surprising result.

Suggested Citation

  • David J. Cooper & Matthias Sutter, 2011. "Role selection and team performance," Working Papers 2011-14, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    • Handle: RePEc:inn:wpaper:2011-14
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. van Dijk, Frans & Sonnemans, Joep & Bauw, Eddy, 2014. "Judicial error by groups and individuals," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 224-235.
    2. Marco Casari & Jingjing Zhang & Christine Jackson, 2016. "Same process, different outcomes: group performance in an acquiring a company experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(4), pages 764-791, December.
    3. Tomas Sjöström & Levent Ülkü & Radovan Vadovic, 2017. "Free to Choose: Testing the Pure Motivation Effect of Autonomous Choice," Carleton Economic Papers 17-11, Carleton University, Department of Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Role selection in teams; team performance; takeover game; winner�s curse; communication; experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior

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