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You Can’t Put Old Wine in New Bottles: The Effect of Newcomers on Coordination in Groups

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  • McCarter, Matthew
  • Sheremeta, Roman

Abstract

A common finding in social sciences is that member change hinders group functioning and performance. However, questions remain as to why member change negatively affects group performance and what are some ways to alleviate the negative effects of member change on performance? To answer these questions we conduct an experiment in which we investigate the effect of newcomers on a group’s ability to coordinate efficiently. Participants play a coordination game in a four-person group for the first part of the experiment, and then two members of the group are replaced with new participants, and the newly formed group plays the game for the second part of the experiment. Our results show that the arrival of newcomers decreases trust among group members and this decrease in trust negatively affects group performance. Knowing the performance history of the arriving newcomers mitigates the negative effect of their arrival, but only when newcomers also know the oldtimers performance history. Surprisingly, in groups that performed poorly prior to the newcomers’ arrival, the distrust generated by newcomers is mainly between oldtimers about each other rather than about the newcomers.

Suggested Citation

  • McCarter, Matthew & Sheremeta, Roman, 2013. "You Can’t Put Old Wine in New Bottles: The Effect of Newcomers on Coordination in Groups," MPRA Paper 43532, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:43532
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    Cited by:

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    2. Grund, Christian & Harbring, Christine & Thommes, Kirsten, 2018. "Group (Re-) formation in public good games: The tale of the bad apple?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 306-319.
    3. Matthew W. McCarter & Anya C. Samak & Roman M. Sheremeta, 2014. "Divided Loyalists or Conditional Cooperators? Creating Consensus about Cooperation in Multiple Simultaneous Social Dilemmas," Working Papers 14-16, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    4. Bart J Bruin & Henri C Dekker & Tom L C M Groot, 2019. "Dynamic influences on cooperation in a social dilemma: How type of experience and communication affect behavioral spillovers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(3), pages 1-24, March.
    5. Christian Grund & Christine Harbring & Kirsten Thommes & Katja Rebecca Tilkes, 2020. "Decisions on Extending Group Membership—Evidence from a Public Good Experiment," Games, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 11(4), pages 1-27, December.
    6. Roman M. Sheremeta, 2018. "Behavior In Group Contests: A Review Of Experimental Research," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 683-704, July.
    7. Fehr, Dietmar, 2017. "Costly communication and learning from failure in organizational coordination," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 106-122.
    8. Sheremeta, Roman & Smith, Vernon, 2017. "The Impact of the Reformation on the Economic Development of Western Europe," MPRA Paper 87220, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    coordination; group performance; oldtimers; newcomers; trust; experiments;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior

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