Demographic Diversity and Collusion in Teams

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Glover, Jonathan; Kim, Eunhee
• 署名单位: Columbia University; City University of New York (CUNY) System; Baruch College (CUNY)
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2022.00855
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: diversity; mutual monitoring; COOPERATION; collusion; asymmetric contracting; workforce design; TEAM COMPOSITION

摘要

We study optimal workforce and contract design for a firm that employs a team of two agents. The agents have possibly diverse demographic characteristics captured by their discount factors. When both agents have relatively low discount factors (impatient agents), the optimal contract is designed to foster cooperation, whereas when both agents have relatively high discount factors (patient agents), the optimal contract is designed to both foster cooperation and prevent collusion. In preventing collusion, the principal optimally targets the less patient agent by offering him higher-powered incentives, while the more patient agent is offered lower-powered incentives to promote cooperation. Offering high-powered incentives to the less patient agent, who is also less susceptible to collusion, makes it costlier for the more patient agent to bribe the less patient agent into colluding. The optimal workforce is a diverse one consisting of one agent with the highest discount factor and a second agent with a discount factor that is just low enough that both agents can be offered cooperative incentives without inviting collusion. We also study optimal team design for four agents with given discount factors-two with low discount factors and two with high discount factors-who are to be assigned to two teams and identify conditions under which diverse assignment is optimal.