Partnership Formation: The Role of Social Status

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bhattacharya, Haimanti; Dugar, Subhasish
• 署名单位: Utah System of Higher Education; University of Utah; University of Calgary
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2013.1818
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 1130-1147
• 关键词: Partnership; status; laboratory experiment

摘要

We experimentally test for the effect of social status on the likelihood of partnership formation. We consider a two-player game where the opportunity to perform a hidden action by one player may render partnership formation difficult. In this context, we study how the assignment of partners' status to the top, middle, or bottom position of a preexisting status hierarchy affects collaboration. We find that partnership formation is remarkably sensitive to the partners' status affiliations. Collaboration is easiest when both partners share the same social status, and the probability of partnership formation decreases significantly as the status gap between the partners increases, entailing massive inefficiency.