Using Incentives To Overcome The Negative Effects Of Faultline Conflict On Individual Effort

Keywords

Conflict; Effort; Faultlines; Group decision making; Incentives

Abstract

In this study, we investigate the effects of faultline-induced conflict on individual effort and how incentives can be designed to overcome these negative effects. Faultlines are hypothetical dividing lines between group members based on various member attributes that can potentially split the overall group into subgroups. Results from our experiment show that team members are more likely to perceive conflict when they face a faultlinerelated issue, which, in turn, leads to lower effort by individual team members. Consistent with the theory of cooperation and competition, incentives moderate the effect of conflict on effort, such that team incentives have a greater effect to increase effort than individual incentives when the level of conflict is high, rather than low. Collectively, our findings suggest that competitive team incentives may be an effective tool to overcome the negative effects of faultline conflict in a group.

Publication Date

3-1-2016

Publication Title

Behavioral Research in Accounting

Volume

28

Issue

1

Number of Pages

67-81

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.2308/bria-51147

Socpus ID

84956899671 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84956899671

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