Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Series: Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers
Creation-Date: 2009-03-12
Number: 09-027/1
Author-Name: Nick Vikander
Author-Email: vikander@tinbergen.nl
Author-Workplace-Name: Erasmus University Rotterdam
Title: The Breakdown of Morale
Abstract: This paper studies how morale in teams can break down. It interprets high morale as team members working together productively, either because of a sense of fairness or because of implicit incentives from repeated interactions. Team members learn that lay-offs will occur at a fixed future date, which will eventually cause morale to break down. The paper shows that the breakdown of morale can vary in size and the equilibrium outcomes can be Pareto ranked. A firm's measures to encourage cooperation may actually hurt morale, by convincing opportunistic team members to imitate and later take advantage of cooperative colleagues.
Classification-JEL: M50, M54, L22
Keywords: morale, teams, cooperation
File-Url: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/09027.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 304064 bytes
Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20090027