Journal article
Effective leadership across economic contexts
The leadership quarterly, Vol.35(4), 101788
08/2024
DOI: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2024.101788
Abstract
We use a laboratory experiment to study how leaders affect workers’ productivity across economic incentive contexts. In four-person groups, three group members work on a production task, with a fourth member potentially serving as a leader. We vary the economic context by changing how worker pay is determined as a function of worker outputs, comparing Revenue Sharing, Weak Link or Tournament incentives while holding constant the activity performed by workers and the incentives for leaders. A second treatment varies whether groups have Active Leaders who can exert influence through messages to workers or Passive Supervisors who exert no influence. The average effect of having an Active Leader on group output is large only under Weak Link incentives. Across all incentive contexts, we find a positive correlation between the productivity increase in output produced by an Active Leader and independent ratings of leader quality based on measures from leadership research. The nature of leaders’ communication varies across incentive contexts, with comparisons between workers most common under Tournament incentives and messages about group earnings, which speak to social considerations, most common with Weak Link incentives.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Effective leadership across economic contexts
- Creators
- David J Cooper - University of IowaGiovanna D'Adda - RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the EnvironmentRoberto A Weber - University of Zurich
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- The leadership quarterly, Vol.35(4), 101788
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.leaqua.2024.101788
- ISSN
- 1048-9843
- eISSN
- 1873-3409
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Grant note
- National Science Foundation: 1127704 European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (ERC): 336155 Fondazione PesentiSwiss National Science Foundation: 100018_140571 Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF): 100018_140571
Cooper is grateful for support from the National Science Foundation (award 1127704, "Leadership and overcoming coordination failure") . d'Adda is grateful for support from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (ERC grant agreement no. 336155-project COBHAM) and for support from the Fondazione Pesenti. Weber is grateful for support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (award 100018_140571, "Leadership across economic contexts") .
- Language
- English
- Electronic publication date
- 05/28/2024
- Date published
- 08/2024
- Academic Unit
- Economics
- Record Identifier
- 9984747817902771
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