Social dilemmas conceptually suggest distinguishing direct
individual and group-level effects (also involving indirect
effects on others). Furthermore, the success of organizations
appears to rely on identifying not only individual excellence
but positive impact on others as well. In ‘Two-Level
Personnel Evaluation Tasks’ (T-PETs) participants as human
resource managers evaluate employees when individual and
group contributions are dissociated. Von Sydow, Braus, &
Hahn (2018) have suggested a potential ‘Tragedy of
Personnel Evaluation’: A group-serving employee with the
smallest individual contribution but by far the greatest po-
sitive effect on the group’s overall earnings was often rated
the most negatively. Here we investigate, in two experiments
with conflicting information, whether emphasizing the group
can avert the ‘tragic’ outcome. Our results suggest that the
tragedy is not as complete as suggested, and that contextual
information can mitigate the tragedy. Nonetheless, the results
also corroborate the stability of underestimating the impact of
team players
