Year: 2006
Type: preprint
Abstract: We present an explanation of the high frequency of team production and high level of peer monitoring found in Japanese firms, in terms of a simple and empirically grounded variation in individual utility functions. We argue that Japanese agents are generally characterized by a higher degree, with respect to their Western counterparts, of aversion to unfavorable inequality, a feature which explains seemingly puzzling experimental evidence. In combination with long term employment and various organizational practices, this creates the conditions for obtaining willingness to exert mutual monitoring and peer pressure which facilitates the convergence towards cooperative equilibria in dilemma type situations.
Author: Gianandrea Staffiero
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Generalitat de Catalunya
OpenAlex ID: W3121611775