"Observability and Overcoming Coordination Failure in Organizations"

Many organizations suffer poor performance because its members fail to coordinate on efficient patterns of behavior. In previous research, we have shown that financial incentives can be used to find a way out of such performance traps. Here we examine the sensitivity of this result to the ability of people to observe others' choices. Our experiments are set in a corporate environment where subjects' payoffs depend on coordinating at high effort levels; the underlying game being played repeatedly by the employees of an experimental firm is a weak-link game. Treatments vary along two dimensions. First, subjects either start with low financial incentives for coordination, which typically leads to coordination failure, and then are switched to higher incentives or start with high incentives, which typically yield effective coordination, and are switched to low incentives. Second, as the key treatment variable, subjects either observe the effort levels chosen by all employees in their experimentaIncentives, Coordination, Observation, Experiments, Organizations

It's What You Say Not What You Pay

We study manager-employee interactions in experiments set in a corporate environment where payoffs depend on employees coordinating at high effort levels; the underlying game being played repeatedly by employees is a weak-link game. In the absence of managerial intervention subjects invariably slip into coordination failure. To overcome a history of coordination failure, managers have two instruments at their disposal, increasing employees' financial incentives to coordinate and communication with employees. We find that communication is a more effective tool than incentive changes for leading organizations out of performance traps. Examining the content of managers' communication, the most effective messages specifically request a high effort, point out the mutual benefits of high effort, and imply that employees are being paid well.Change, Incentives, Coordination, Communication, Experiments, Organizations

A Change Would Do You Good . . . An Experimental Study on How to Overcome Coordination Failure in Organizations

Many organizations suffer poor performance because individuals within the organization fail to coordinate on efficient patterns of behavior. Using controlled laboratory experiments, we study how financial incentives can be used to find a way out of such performance traps. Our experiments are set in a corporate environment where subjects' payoffs depend on coordinating at high effort levels; the underlying game being played repeatedly by employees is a weak-link game. In an initial phase, the benefits of coordination are low relative to the cost of increased effort. Play in this initial phase typically converges to an inefficient outcome with employees failing to coordinate at high effort levels. The experimental design then explores the effects of varying the financial incentives to coordinate at a higher effort level. We find that an increase in the benefits of coordination leads to improved coordination, but, surprisingly, large increases have no more impact than small increases. Once subjIncentives, Coordination, Experiments, Organizations

The use of discrete orthogonal projections in boundary element methods

In recent papers by Sloan and Wendland Grigorie and Sloan and Grigorie Sloan and Brandts a formalismwas developed that serves many important and interesting applications in boundary element methods the commutator property for splines Based on superapproximation results this property is for example a tool of central importance in stability and convergence proofs for qualocation methods for boundary integral equations with variable coecients Another application is the transfer of superconvergence properties from constantcoecient boundary integral equations to the variable coecient case The heart of the theory is formed by the concept discrete orthogonal pro jection that arises when the Lorthogonal inner product is discretized by possibly nonstandard quadrature rules In this paper we present an overview of the theory of discrete orthogonal projections and a new set of numerical experiments that conrm the theory The main conclusion is that the presence of variable coecients of a certain smoothness does not inuence superconvergence in a negative way and that henceforth the use of superconvergencebased a posteriori error estimators in this particular case is theoretically justie

Projections methods for oversized linear algebra problems

Everybody who has some experience in doing mathematics knows that di mensional reduction and projection are useful tools to confront problems that are too complicated to solve without any simplication Who hasnt occasion ally but notwithstanding timidly suggested that perhaps it would be a good idea to study the simple onedimensional case rst before trying to understand the realworld threedimensional problem Apparently it is a widespread faith that such simplications will not damage the essential mathematical or physical truth that is hidden in the original problem But is this faith founded Re gardless of the answer one should realize that in many applications there is no plausible alternative so it would be unfair to judge too harshly on those who solve reduced problems and with due mathematical care formulate interesting and strong theorems and hypotheses on the full problem Among them are the people from the eld of numerical linear algebr

A Four Country Comparision of Spite, Cooperation and Errors in Voluntary Contribution Mechanisms.

This paper presents data from experiments with a linear voluntary contributions mechanism for public goods conducted in Japan, the Netherlands, Spain and the USA. The same experimental design was used in the four countries.EXPERIMENTS ; VOLUNTARY SERVICES ; PUBLIC GOODS

Leadership and Overcoming Coordination Failure with Asymmetric Costs

We study how the heterogeneity of agents affects the extent to which changes in financial incentives can pull a group out of a situation of coordination failure. We focus on the connections between cost asymmetries and leadership. Experimental subjects interact in groups of four in a series of weak-link games. The treatment variable is the distribution of high and low effort cost across subjects. We present data for one, two and three low-cost subjects as well as control sessions with symmetric costs. The overall pattern of coordination improvement is common across treatments. Early coordination improvements depend on the distribution of high and low effort costs across subjects, but these differences disappear with time. We find that initial leadership in overcoming coordination failure is not driven by low-cost subjects but by subjects with the most frequent cost. This conformity effect can be due to a kind of group identity or to the cognitive simplicity of acting with identical others.Experiments, Coordination, Organizational change, Heterogeneous agents, Leadership

Changes in sulfhydryl groups of honeybee glyceraldehyde phosphate dehydrogenase associated with generation of the intermediate plateau in its saturation kinetics

Honeybee and rabbit muscle GPDH were studied to obtain information at the chemical level regarding anomolous saturation kinetics of the honeybee enzyme. Results demonstrate that the enzyme's sulfhydryl groups are implicated in the process. Measured by DTNB titration, native honeybee GPDH has one less active SH than the native rabbit muscle enzyme and displays changes in overall sulfhydryl reactivity after preincubation with G-3-P or G-3-P plus NAD+. The total DTNB reactive sulfhydryls of rabbit muscle GPDH are not changed by preincubation with NAD+ or G-3-P; honeybee GPDH, under certain conductions of preincubation with these ligands, shows a decrease of two total DTNB reactive SH groups. This difference has been confirmed by an independent experiment in which the two enzymes were carboxymethylated with C-14 bromoacetic acid

The impact of relative position and returns on sacrifice and reciprocity: an experimental study using individual decisions

We present a comprehensive experimental design that makes it possible to characterize other-regarding preferences and their relationship to the decision maker’s relative position. Participants are faced with a large number of decisions involving variations in the trade-offs between own and other’s payoffs, as well as in other potentially important factors like the decision maker’s relative position. We find that: (1) choices are responsive to the cost of helping and hurting others; (2) The weight a decision maker places on others’ monetary payoffs depends on whether the decision maker is in an advantageous or disadvantageous relative position; and (3) We find no evidence of reciprocity of the type linked to menu-dependence. The results of a mixture-model estimation show considerable heterogeneity in subjects’ motivations and confirm the absence of reciprocal motives. Pure selfish behavior is the most frequently observed behavior. Among the subjects exhibiting social preferences, social-welfare maximization is the most frequent, followed by inequality-aversion and by competitiveness