William P. Bottom

When Talk Is Not Cheap: Substantive Penance and Expressions of Intent in Rebuilding Cooperation

Interpersonal relationships can be fragile. The mere perception of opportunistic behavior can lead to a breakdown in cooperation. Once damaged, the question then arises as to whether and how cooperation might be restored. Noncooperative game theory raises serious doubts about the possibilities, although interactional justice and impression management research have shown that verbal explanations can dampen reactions to aversive behavior. Philosophical, anthropological, and ethological research all suggest that genuine forgiveness may require something more tangible and substantive than an explanation. Thus, the current experiment investigated the effects of explanations and varying forms of substantive amends on the restoration of mutual cooperation. The results confirm that rebuilding cooperation is feasible. Apologies and simple explanations can be effective to a degree, though substantive amends have significantly more positive effects than explanations alone. In contrast to prior findings on interactional justice, acknowledgments were more effective than denials in repairing short interactions. This research demonstrates that, once breached, cooperation can be reestablished and that actions as well as explanations and apologies can augment the process in important and sometimes subtle ways.

Tough Decisions: Tactics for Improving Managerial Decision Making

The article reviews the book “Tough Decisions: Tactics for Improving Managerial Decision Making,” by Paul C. Nutt.

An Empirical Evaluation of the Transitivity, Monotonicity, Accounting, and Conjoint Axioms for Perceived Risk

This study tests the adequacy of the axioms underlying Luce and Webers (1986) conjoint expected risk model. Risk judgments are found to be transitive. Monotonicity or the substitution principle per se seems to hold, but the related probability accounting assumption is violated. The conjoint structure assumptions about the effect of change of scale transformations on risk hold for negative-outcome lotteries but encounter some difficulty for positive-outcome lotteries. Possible explanations for violations are suggested, and implications of these results for the modeling of perceived risk are discussed.

Once Bitten: Defection and Reconciliation in a Cooperative Enterprise

Business negotiations often involve cooperative arrangements. Sometimes one party will renege on a cooperative enterprise for short-term opportunistic gain. There is a common assumption that such behavior necessarily leads to a spiral of mutual antagonism. We use some of the philosophical literature to frame general research questions and identify relevant variables in dealing with defection. We then describe an experimental approach for examining the possibility of reconciliation and discuss the results of one such experiment where participants were the victims of defection. In contrast to the initial assumptions we found that many participants were willing to reconcile, and that penance conditions, when demanded, were less stringent than expected. We suggest that these findings warrant further study and have implications for business dealings. Very little can be learnt about [retribution] from Aristotle’s Politics or his three ethics. In modern ethico-political concepts of justice (in Hobbes, Rousseau and Hegel), the problem of retribution appears in conjunction with other problems and is not of central importance.—Agnes Heller

Getting to the Core

Important decisions are often determined by group vote. Institutional provisions may stipulate who has the authority to determine the groups agenda. According to cooperative game theory, this privilege gives the leader a great deal of power to control the outcome. In a series of experiments, the authors demonstrate the influence of norms on coalitions and decisions. Subjects were assigned to groups with two agenda setters, two issues, and concentric indifference curves. Three theories were tested: coalitional rationality, group fairness, and coalitional integrity. The pattern of coalition formation, coalition dissolution, and decisions was consistent only with coalitional integrity. The integrity norm (members will not join a coalition requiring them to vote against the interests of prior coalition members) generates friction in coalition dynamics. Clearly, when formulating an agenda, leaders must consider a potential partners coalitional history. Theories of group decision making must be sensitive to social constraints as well as self-interest.

The Institutional Effect on Majority Rule Instability: Bicameralism in Spatial Policy Decisions

The purpose of this paper is to report on experiments that test for an independent effect of bicameralism on legislative stability. The experiments are designed to test the theory of the bicameral core (Hammond and Miller 1986), which demonstrates that a bicameral legislature is more apt to have stable undominated policy choices than a unicameral legislature with the same number of legislators holding the same preferences.

ORGANIZING INTELLIGENCE: DEVELOPMENT OF BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE AND THE RESEARCH BASED MODEL OF BUSINESS EDUCATION

Conventional history of the predominant, research-based model of business education (RBM) traces its origins to programs initiated by the Ford Foundation after World War II. This paper maps the elite network responsible for developing behavioral science and the Ford Foundation agenda. Archival records of the actions taken by central nodes in the network permit identification of the original vision statement for the model. Analysis also permits tracking progress toward realizing that vision over several decades. Behavioral science was married to business education from the earliest stages of development. The RBM was a fundamental promise made by advocates for social science funding. Appraisals of the model and recommendations for reform must address its full history, not the partial, distorted view that is the conventional account. Implications of this more complete history for business education and for behavioral theory are considered.

Team Performance as a Joint Function of Team Member Satisfaction and Agreeableness

Recent research on team personality has paid growing attention to team agreeableness; yet the literature is replete with mixed findings regarding the relationship between team agreeableness and team performance. Following the emerging trend of examining the moderating role of team personality traits in team dynamics, we propose a novel view of team agreeableness as a moderator for the relationship between team member satisfaction and team performance. With 230 senior-level professionals in 42 self-managed teams, we found that when team agreeableness was low, team member satisfaction was positively related to team performance, whereas when team agreeableness was high, team member satisfaction was not significantly related to team performance. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Flying Bagels and Social Graces: The Impact of Strategic Expressions of Emotion on Distrust and Post Settlement Behavior

Strategic emotion can be used as a negotiation tactic to extract value from one’s opponent. Previous research findings have found that the use of this tactic can influence not only the amount of value claimed, but post-negotiation behaviors. However, interacting with an opponent who possesses power based on their alternative to an agreement can halt the amount of value claimed. Individuals with more power (i.e. a better BATNA) are less likely to concede and more likely to make attempts to earn more points or money for themselves. While interacting, these variables - use of strategic emotion and level of power - produce perceptions that may alter not only the negotiated outcomes, but what occurs post-hoc after the contract has been negotiated. This experiment examined these effects - the influence of power and the strategic use of emotion - on economic outcomes within a negotiation as well as post-negotiation behavior. Despite prior research findings, our results fail to replicate the influence of emotion on value claimed - angry participants do not claim more value but does influence post-negotiation behaviors.

ACPE: A computerized system for running small-group decision-making experiments

Small groups are called upon to make important policy decisions under a wide variety of procedural constraints. ACPE is a flexible, computerized system for conducting small-group voting experiments. It permits researchers to examine the impact of electronic communication on group deliberation and choice. The system runs under a variety of different personal computer networks and is designed to permit the specification of voting rules, communication, and group sizes. The system also facilitates the study of group process by tracking all messages sent and votes taken. An experiment in which the system was used is briefly described.