Apologies as Signals: With Evidence from a Trust Game

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ho, Benjamin
• 署名单位: Vassar College
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.1110.1410
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 141-158
• 关键词: apologies; remorse; signaling; Trust game; ATTRIBUTION THEORY

摘要

Apologies are part of a social institution designed to restore frayed relationships not only in daily life but also in the domains of corporate governance, medical malpractice litigation, political reputation, organizational culture, etc. The theory shows that in a general class of moral hazard games with imperfect information about agents with two-dimensional type, apologies exhibit regular properties-e.g., apologies are more frequent in long relationships, early in relationships, and between better-matched partners. A variant of the trust game demonstrates that communication matters in a manner consistent with economic theory; specifically, the words I am sorry appear to select equilibrium behavior consistent with the theory's main predictions.