B1845
Title: Between-team competition, within-team cooperation and team composition: An experimental study
Authors: Francisca Jimenez-Jimenez - Universidad de Jaen (Spain) [presenting]
Abstract: We present the results of an experimental study in which competitiveness and cooperation are combined to improve efficiency in team production. Teams often suffer from a free-rider problem with respect to individual contributions. Recent literature of experimental economics shows that putting teams into competition with each other can mitigate this problem. However, the question about how the composition of the teams influences on cooperative behaviour, and thereby overall efficiency, remains largely unexplored. The main purpose is to compare team performance between heterogeneous teams (randomly formed) and homogeneous teams (similar preferences) with and without competition between them. As decision framework, we use a public goods game with an all-can-win competition. Individual contribution decisions are repeatedly made during ten periods without competition (independent teams) and, afterwards, during other ten periods with competition (dependent teams) under a within-subject design. Consequently, when analyzing the experimental data, we tackle the dependence problem allowing for clustering at the subject level, at the team level and at the competition level. Parametric and non-parametric methods are used in the statistical analysis. Our experimental results provide support for a significant impact of both between-team competition and team composition on the overall cooperation level.
