The Dark Side of Competition for Status
36 Pages Posted: 24 Jan 2015
Date Written: 2014
Abstract
Unethical behavior within organizations is not rare. We investigate experimentally the role of status-seeking behavior in sabotage and cheating activities aiming at improving one’s performance ranking in a flat-wage environment. We find that average effort is higher when individuals are informed about their relative performance. However, ranking feedback also favors disreputable behavior. Some individuals do not hesitate to incur a cost to improve their rank by sabotaging others’ work or by increasing artificially their own performance. Introducing sabotage opportunities has a strong detrimental effect on performance. Therefore, ranking incentives should be used with care. Inducing group identity discourages sabotage among peers but increases in-group rivalry.
Keywords: Status, ranking, feedback, sabotage, doping, competitive preferences, experiment
JEL Classification: C91, C92, M54, D63, J28, J31
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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