Shaping Sustainable Organizations

Members of clubs and employees in companies are often holding back and do not come forward with important information because they cannot really live their values within their organization. This can lead to bad decisions and endanger the stability of the whole organization. We examine different aspects that may help, so that people engage more within their organization.

  • Don't patronize me! An Experiment on Preferences for Authorship (Silvia Lübbecke and Wendelin Schnedler). In this article, we provide experimental evidence that getting members or employees on the ground want to "author" outcomes, which renders it crucial to get them "on board" for generating lasting solutions and in order to avoid conflict.

  • Against all odds: Tentative Steps Toward Efficient Information Sharing in Groups (Darius Schlangenotto, Wendelin Schnedler and Radovan Vadovic), GAMES, 11.3: 31. We provide evidence that individuals in a democratic setting reveal information even if this is damaging in the short-run. This suggests that given a process where everyone has a say, behavior in a group may tend toward openness.

  • Revisiting a remedy against chains of unkindness (Wendelin Schnedler and Nina Stephan), Schmalenbachs Business Review, 72: 347-364. We provide experimental evidence that writing a letter to a person increases kindness toward a third uninvolved party - irrespectively of whether this person has been nice or not. This suggests that the culture within an organization may be changed.

  • Taking the blame and sharing the fame (Xinyu Li and Wendelin Schnedler). We show theoretically that being unable to find out who has done what in a team creates a free riding problem. This problem can be overcome by assigning responsibility to one member who is capable of eliciting help from others but only if all other members are not held accountable, irrespectively of what they have done.

  • Conformism of Minorities (Fabian Bopp, Wendelin Schnedler, Radovan Vadovic). We provide experimental evidence on how power to decide for a group affects behavior. We find that more power results in more decisions that are in line with the group opinion.

  • Legitimacy of Control (Wendelin Schnedler and Radovan Vadovic), Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, 20 (4, December), 985-1009 earlier versions: IZA DP 3013. We provide experimental evidence that individuals react less averse to control when the reason for controlling is more transparent.

  • Team Governance: Empowerment or Hierarchical Control (Guido Friebel and Wendelin Schnedler), Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. 78 (April), 1-13. We show theoretically that empowering a newly composed team may work as a signal about co-workers' commitment and therefore increase team productivity.

  • Revealed Image: Choice under Social Pressure (Dilan Okcuoglu Celik). Can norms be an alternative or complement to material incentives or sanctions to foster desired behavior at home, school or workplace? I show theoretically that if you impose enough social pressure on individuals, they are more likely to comply with the norms.