Events

Two Studies on Workplace Sabotage
The talk will cover two papers on workplace sabotage:

Paper 1: ‘Stuck in the Middle’ of Enforcement: (sub-)Optimal Deterrence of Workplace Sabotage
Abstract 1:
We investigate theoretically the effects of punitive fines for sabotage behavior in organizations. We consider a two-stage game in which possible heterogeneous agents are involved in a Tullock contest in the first stage. In the second stage, they can observe and diminish the effort of the opponent by incurring costly sabotage. Sabotage cost occurs due to a fine on detected sabotage behavior. This structure and game sequence are common in the field, but new to the literature. We fully characterize the equilibria and show that sabotage decreases with an increase in the fine level. However, the relationship between fine and effort as well as fine and payoff are non-monotonic. In specific, as an unintended consequence, for an intermediate level of fine the total effort and total payoff may decrease substantially.

Paper 2: Social-cue as Nudge to Deter Workplace Sabotage
Abstract 2:
Sabotage is the destructive act in which people can damage the performance of their rival in competitions. Organizations try to deter sabotage with both costly incentives and logistically problematic punishments since such an act damages the organization objectives and reduces morale. In this study we experimentally investigate whether the implementation of visual social cue (in terms of showing an image of a pair of eyes) can deter sabotage behavior. We implement a 2×2 factorial design in a contest experiment in which subjects are either under the social cue treatment or not, versus they can implement a multiplicative costly sabotage or not. We find that the social cue significantly decreases sabotage; however, it also decreases contest effort. Moreover, the effect of the social cue is heterogenous across gender.

Professor Subhasish M. Chowdhury | Economics | The University of Sheffield