Work

Same process, different outcomes: group performance in an acquiring a company experiment

Year: 2015

Type: article

Abstract: It is still an open question when groups perform better than individuals in intellective tasks. We report that in an Acquiring a Company game, what prevailed when there was disagreement among group members was the median proposal and not the best proposal. This aggregation rule explains why groups underperformed with respect to a “truth wins” benchmark and why they performed better than individuals deciding in isolation in a simple version of the task but worse in the more difficult version. Implications are drawn on when to employ groups rather than individuals in decision making.

Source: Experimental Economics

DOI: 10.1007/s10683-015-9467-7

Authors: Marco Casari, Jingjing Zhang, Christine Jackson

Institutions: University of Bologna, University of Technology Sydney, Purdue University West Lafayette

Language: English

Topic: Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies

Subfield: Economics and Econometrics

Field: Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Science Foundation, Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung, Università Bocconi, FP7 Ideas: European Research Council

Awards: Communication and Competition, Engineering Social and Economic Institutions