IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tin/wpaper/20090027.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Breakdown of Morale

Author

Listed:
  • 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
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/09027.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kreps, David M. & Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John & Wilson, Robert, 1982. "Rational cooperation in the finitely repeated prisoners' dilemma," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 245-252, August.
    2. Serrano, Roberto & Zapater, Inigo, 1998. "The Three-Legged Race: Cooperating to Compete," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 343-363, February.
    3. Robert Gibbons, 1998. "Incentives in Organizations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 115-132, Fall.
    4. Yeon-Koo Che & Seung-Weon Yoo, 2001. "Optimal Incentives for Teams," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 525-541, June.
    5. Drew Fudenberg & Jean Tirole, 1991. "Game Theory," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262061414, April.
    6. Uri Gneezy & Aldo Rustichini, 2000. "Pay Enough or Don't Pay at All," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 791-810.
    7. Kandel, Eugene & Lazear, Edward P, 1992. "Peer Pressure and Partnerships," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(4), pages 801-817, August.
    8. Alchian, Armen A & Demsetz, Harold, 1972. "Production , Information Costs, and Economic Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(5), pages 777-795, December.
    9. Janssen, Maarten C. W. & Gorter, Joeri & van de Meerendonk, Sjoerd, 1997. "Cooperation in a modified version of the finitely repeated prisoners' dilemma game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 613-619, April.
    10. Bernheim, B. Douglas & Peleg, Bezalel & Whinston, Michael D., 1987. "Coalition-Proof Nash Equilibria I. Concepts," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 1-12, June.
    11. Ola Kvaløy & Trond E. Olsen, 2006. "Team Incentives in Relational Employment Contracts," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(1), pages 139-170, January.
    12. Luis Rayo, 2007. "Relational Incentives and Moral Hazard in Teams," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(3), pages 937-963.
    13. Rotemberg, Julio J, 1994. "Human Relations in the Workplace," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(4), pages 684-717, August.
    14. Hirshlifer, David & Rassmusen, Eric, 1989. "Cooperation in a repeated prisoners' dilemma with ostracism," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 87-106, August.
    15. Janssen, Maarten C. W. & Mendys-Kamphorst, Ewa, 2004. "The price of a price: on the crowding out and in of social norms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 377-395, November.
    16. Jonathan Levin, 2002. "Multilateral Contracting and the Employment Relationship," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 1075-1103.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kvaløy, Ola & Olsen, Trond E., 2016. "Teams in Relational Contracts," Discussion Papers 2016/23, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    2. Ola Kvaløy & Trond E. Olsen, 2019. "Relational Contracts, Multiple Agents, and Correlated Outputs," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(11), pages 5360-5370, November.
    3. Hendrik Hakenes & Svetlana Katolnik, 2018. "Optimal Team Size and Overconfidence," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 27(4), pages 665-687, August.
    4. Matthias Fahn & Hendrik Hakenes, 2019. "Teamwork as a Self-Disciplining Device," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 1-32, November.
    5. James M. Malcomson, 2012. "Relational Incentive Contracts [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    6. Ola Kvaløy & Trond E. Olsen, 2008. "Relative Performance Evaluation, Agent Hold-up and Firm Organization," NBER Chapters, in: Organizational Innovation and Firm Performance, pages 229-241, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Kvaløy, Ola & Olsen, Trond E., 2013. "Teams and Tournaments in Relational Contracts," Discussion Papers 2013/13, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    8. Ola Kvaløy & Trond E. Olsen, 2006. "Team Incentives in Relational Employment Contracts," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(1), pages 139-170, January.
    9. Ola Kvaløy & Trond E. Olsen, 2012. "The Rise of Individual Performance Pay," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 493-518, June.
    10. Ola Kvaløy & Trond E. Olsen, 2008. "Cooperation in Knowledge-Intensive Firms," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(4), pages 410-440.
    11. Sloof, Randolph & Sonnemans, Joep, 2011. "The interaction between explicit and relational incentives: An experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 573-594.
    12. Chao, Hong & Croson, Rachel T.A., 2013. "An experimental comparison of incentive contracts in partnerships," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 78-87.
    13. Fosco, C. & Mengel, F., 2008. "Incentives and informal networks," Research Memorandum 022, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    14. Livio, Luca & De Chiara, Alessandro, 2019. "Friends or foes? Optimal incentives for reciprocal agents," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 245-278.
    15. Gjedrem, William Gilje & Kvaløy, Ola, 2020. "Relative performance feedback to teams," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    16. Meagher, Kieron & Prasad, Suraj, 2016. "Career concerns and team talent," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 1-17.
    17. James Jr., Harvey S., 2002. "The trust paradox: a survey of economic inquiries into the nature of trust and trustworthiness," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 291-307, March.
    18. Ishiguro, Shingo & Yasuda, Yosuke, 2023. "Moral hazard and subjective evaluation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    19. Goeschl, Timo & Jarke, Johannes, 2014. "Trust, but verify? When trustworthiness is observable only through (costly) monitoring," WiSo-HH Working Paper Series 20, University of Hamburg, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, WISO Research Laboratory.
    20. J. Miguel Villas-Boas, 2020. "Repeated Interaction in Teams: Tenure and Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(3), pages 1496-1507, March.

    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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20090027. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tinbenl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.